Questions indicated by [SA] are short answer questions and require a sentence or less to answer and are worth 2 points

Questions indicated by [MA] are medium answer questions and will require two to four sentences to answer, and are worth 3 to 5 points

Questions by [LA] are long answer and will require one to one and a half paragraphs to answer, and are worth 5 to 10 points.

 

DON'T STOP UNTIL YOU GET TO QUESTION22 (BUT NOTE THE EXTRA-CREDIT)

Questions on Gilbert and Reynolds, Africa in World History available on Electronic Reserves

1) [MA] How does the etymology (noun: the origin of a word or part of a word, or a statement of this and how it has arrived at its current form and meaning.) of the English word for “slave” reveal the origin of most of Europe’s slaves before 1440?

2) [SA] How did Arab traders acquire slaves in the Transaharan slave trade?

3) [LA] According to Thornton, how and why did the availability (or scarcity) of land and people foster the growth of slavery in Africa before the rise of Trans-atlantic slave trade. Use your own words

4) [MA] Describe a “pawn” and how pawnship both resembled slavery and differed from it.

5) [LA] How did the Italian ability to respond to three challenges of sugar production give rise to the plantation system?

6) [SA] Who worked the sugar plantations of Cyprus?

7) [MA] What two developments in the middle of the 15th century both obliged and allowed Europeans to switch from enslaving the populations of the Black Sea cost in Eastern Europe and start purchasing slaves from Africa?

8) [SA] After the discovery of the wind system in the Atlantic, where did sugar production move from and where did it move to?

9) [SA] Why did the Portugese replace the Italians as the major supplier of Europe’s slaves?

10) [SA] Before 1700, what was the most important product the Portuguese imported from Africa?

11) [SA] (two part question) (A) What did the Portuguese buy in the African kingdom of Kongo to sell to the African states in what is now Ghana? (B) What did the Portuguese import from those states?

12) [LA] Why is the island of Sao Tome so important for understanding the history of slavery? In other words, what role did the island play in creating the system of slavery that later developed?

13) [SA] (TWO QUESTIONS) If hatred had driven Europeans’ choice of which people to enslave, who would have been the most logical population for them to enslave in the 15th and early 16th centuries? And how many Europeans came to the new world as outright slaves (rather than as simply indentured servants)?

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Questions on Davis, Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery, pp. 17 - 19 (they are, however, VERY small pages) available from Electronic Reserves

14) [10 points] TWO PART QUESTION: (A) Using an atlas and the information provided by Davis on p.18 , indicate on the attached map the places from which Europeans acquired slaves between 1204 and 1400 (ignore Mingrelians, Ciracsians, and Tatars -- but note that the map in the textbook will NOT help you in the slightest -- if you think it will you are not reading closely enough).(B) Using an atlas and the information provided by Davis on p.18, indicate on the same map the places to which Europeans sold slaves between 1204 and 1400 (ignore “other Mediterranean markets”). So, you should have lines indicating sources of slaves and markets for those slaves.

15) [MA]Explain how and why the slave trade that delivered 10,000 slaves to Florence, Italy between 1414 and 1423 was different from or similar to the slave trade that eventually transported Africans to the New World? That is, what aspects of the trade made the two systems similar or dissimilar?

16) [LA] Why, according to Davis, did Europeans turn to Africa for slaves?

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Questions on 36 - 39 of John Thornton's Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World available on Electronic Reserves

17 ) [MA] Europeans exploring the west coast of Africa in the 15th century hoped to repeat in that continent what they had done so cruelly in the Atlantic Islands earlier; that is, conquer the territory and enslave the inhabitants. Yet these European schemes got smashed fairly quickly by Africans themselves. How did Africans force Europeans -- as Thornton writes -- "to abandon the time-honored tradition of trading and raiding and substitute a relationship based more or less completely on regulated trade" In other words, how did African elites compel Europeans -- to the Europeans' great displeasure -- to trade for enslaved Africans on terms dictated by African elites themselves?

18) [MA] As the author recounts, in 1645 Boston city officials both returned a group of enslaved Africans taken during raids (rather than traded for) on the African coast and apologized for their seizure. How well do these actions by the Boston city officials fit in with the general pattern of trading relations between African elites and Europeans and why?

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Questions From Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart available on electronic reserves

19) [SA] When European slave traders first began their trade in Africa, were they introducing a new form of commerce to the Continent? Why or Why not? USE YOUR OWN WORDS.

20) [SA] The high number of males among the enslaved Africans in the trans-Atlantic trade is partially explained by the demand of European planters for male labor, and partly by what other factor that was internal to Africa?

( KEEP A COPY OF YOUR ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, IT WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU FOR YOUR UPCOMING SLAVE TRADE PAPER)

RESISTING SLAVERY On both sides of the Atlantic, enslaved persons used a variety of means to fight against their inhumane treatment rather than passively accept their enslavement. You may be interested in this article by a noted African historian on the efforts by enslaved Africans laboring on plantations in the Sakoto Caliphate (then the largest state in Africa south of the Sahara) to achieve greater autonomy in their lives. These efforts resemble in several significant ways the many struggles by slaves in the Americas to resist the dehumanizing aspects of enslavement.

21)[LA] Explain -- using examples -- how the slave trade wrecked some African polities and helped build others. Provide an example for each outcome (wreck & build) and explain how your example supports your point. This Long Answer question may require a full and detailed paragraph to answer completely
USE YOUR OWN WORDS.

( KEEP A COPY OF YOUR ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, IT WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU FOR YOUR UPCOMING SLAVE TRADE PAPER)

22) [LA] Plantation slavery in the American South in the 1850s-- wherein slaves produced commodities like cotton for sale on the market -- was often referred to at the time as the South's "peculiar institution." The use of the word "peculiar" implied that American slavery was unusual or different from the normal pattern of human experience at the time. Using the Tignor's discussion of "Africa's New Slave-Supplying Polities," assess how "peculiar" in the world at the time was slavery in the Americas and Caribbean and why? If it was peculiar, in what ways was it peculiar? Note that the question asks about slavery -- not the slave trade.

SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER WITH EVIDENCE FROM THE ENTIRE TIGNOR READING FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT.This is not a question that you can answer by "looking it up" in the reading. You must think about it. LIKEWISE, THAT THIS QUESTIONS COMES AT THE END OF THE ASSIGNMENT DOES NOT MEAN THE EVIDENCE NECESSARY TO ANSWER IT COMES FROM THE END OF THE READING.

EXTRA-CREDIT (up to forty-five extra points)

In a five paragraph essay, explain why race & racism were or were not the primary forces behind the rise of the slave trade. Be sure to use evidence from the Gilbert, Davis, and the textbook readings. Be sure to have at least six points of evidence for your argument and to identify your claim/evidence/warrant structures.