Praia, Cape Verde Islands
Is there such a thing as “bad vibes”? If so, we should have been experiencing them recently as we sailed in the waters of the notorious “middle passage” of the triangular slave trade. This trade was highly profitable. With the apex of the triangle in Britain and France, manufactured goods such as pig iron and cotton textiles were exchanged in West Africa for human cargo. African slaves, sold to plantation owners in the Americas, labored to produce the raw materials – cotton, coffee, cocoa, sugar – that were sent back across the Atlantic in the never empty holds of the slave ships.
Columbus’ second Atlantic crossing in 1493 had proved to be a turning point in human history. If his 1492 crossing was the voyage of discovery, his 1493 voyage was the voyage of settlement. In its wake came the phenomenon known to historians as the Columbian Exchange, the remarkably extensive exchange of flora and fauna between the old and new worlds. The exchange of people, part of the exchange of fauna, was a one way traffic, from the Old World to the new. Today there are two Europes and two Africas on either side of the Atlantic: a unique phenomenon in human history.
During the eighteenth century, when the Atlantic slave trade was at its height, tens of thousands of African slaves crossed the Atlantic annually, some 80,000 in the year 1759 alone. Packed into primitive ships and given little food, they suffered seasickness and illness that resulted in a ten per cent death rate during the crossing. Eventually, anti-slave trade campaigners, like Wilberforce and Clarkson in the UK, were successful in securing the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Thereafter, for good commercial reasons, Britain sought to stop the involvement of other countries in the slave trade.
The Cape Verde Islands have been central to this story. Originally a Portuguese base for the assembling of slaves, the present population is descended from Africans captured for slavery that intermarried with the Portuguese slave traders. They make their living growing maize – the gift of the American Indians to the Old World in the Columbian Exchange. In the past they were skilled whalers, the largest community of Cape Verdeans outside the islands is in the vicinity of Nantucket.
The African slaves brought next to nothing with them form the Old World to the new, but they did bring their music. Song and dance, part anaesthetic part communal memory, fortified them in their labors. Eventually it gave rise to a new art form, distinctive to the Americas: jazz. In the 1950’s black music crossed the color divide –there was some disapproval of this at the time -when a young white man began to sing and dance “black” music. Significantly, that music reached Europe in the former Atlantic slave port of Liverpool, where the Beatles introduced a variant of the new style into Europe. Today, transatlantic “rock” music is becoming universal. One distinctive style on offer, much in demand in Europe today, is played by musicians from the Cape Verde islands. Good vibes, indeed!
Is there such a thing as “bad vibes”? If so, we should have been experiencing them recently as we sailed in the waters of the notorious “middle passage” of the triangular slave trade. This trade was highly profitable. With the apex of the triangle in Britain and France, manufactured goods such as pig iron and cotton textiles were exchanged in West Africa for human cargo. African slaves, sold to plantation owners in the Americas, labored to produce the raw materials – cotton, coffee, cocoa, sugar – that were sent back across the Atlantic in the never empty holds of the slave ships.
Columbus’ second Atlantic crossing in 1493 had proved to be a turning point in human history. If his 1492 crossing was the voyage of discovery, his 1493 voyage was the voyage of settlement. In its wake came the phenomenon known to historians as the Columbian Exchange, the remarkably extensive exchange of flora and fauna between the old and new worlds. The exchange of people, part of the exchange of fauna, was a one way traffic, from the Old World to the new. Today there are two Europes and two Africas on either side of the Atlantic: a unique phenomenon in human history.
During the eighteenth century, when the Atlantic slave trade was at its height, tens of thousands of African slaves crossed the Atlantic annually, some 80,000 in the year 1759 alone. Packed into primitive ships and given little food, they suffered seasickness and illness that resulted in a ten per cent death rate during the crossing. Eventually, anti-slave trade campaigners, like Wilberforce and Clarkson in the UK, were successful in securing the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Thereafter, for good commercial reasons, Britain sought to stop the involvement of other countries in the slave trade.
The Cape Verde Islands have been central to this story. Originally a Portuguese base for the assembling of slaves, the present population is descended from Africans captured for slavery that intermarried with the Portuguese slave traders. They make their living growing maize – the gift of the American Indians to the Old World in the Columbian Exchange. In the past they were skilled whalers, the largest community of Cape Verdeans outside the islands is in the vicinity of Nantucket.
The African slaves brought next to nothing with them form the Old World to the new, but they did bring their music. Song and dance, part anaesthetic part communal memory, fortified them in their labors. Eventually it gave rise to a new art form, distinctive to the Americas: jazz. In the 1950’s black music crossed the color divide –there was some disapproval of this at the time -when a young white man began to sing and dance “black” music. Significantly, that music reached Europe in the former Atlantic slave port of Liverpool, where the Beatles introduced a variant of the new style into Europe. Today, transatlantic “rock” music is becoming universal. One distinctive style on offer, much in demand in Europe today, is played by musicians from the Cape Verde islands. Good vibes, indeed!
