• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Origins, Development and Impact

Module description

This module provides an introduction to the history of the Transatlantic slave trade. It charts the major events and debates surrounding the transatlantic slaving business, analysing who benefited from it, its political, cultural and socio-economic impact on Africa, the Americas and Europe, and its eventual abolition. No prior knowledge of the topic is assumed, and you will be encouraged to engage with the wide range of sources available to explore your own interests.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to:

• Introduce you to the broad range of sources available to the early modern historian for the study of the Transatlantic slave trade
• Examine various sources, including government records, letters, maps, legislation, diaries, advertisements, newspaper articles, objects and artefacts, films, notarial records, merchants’ and ship registers, account books, narratives, songs, engravings and paintings
• Give you the opportunity to conduct your own research into these sources, considering their value and limitations
• This module will help you develop skills in source analysis and research to provide a foundation for future historical work

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess the main developments in the Transatlantic Slave Trade
• 2. Assess the sources in relation to the historical debates, purposes for which different contemporary sources were produced, and analyse and evaluate their reliability and usefulness for the study of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Identify the problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc., and compare the validity of different types of sources
• 4. Present work orally, respond to questions orally, and think quickly of questions to ask other students

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 7. Work with others in a team and to interact effectively with the tutor and the wider group
• 8. Write to a very tight word-length

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Regional slave trade
• The middle passage
• Life and conditions on board slave ships
• African and Indigenous slavery
• Slave-produced commodities
• Colonisation and slavery
• Economics of slavery
• Resistance to slavery
• Runaways
• British, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and Africans involvement in the slave trade
• The Church and slavery
• Abolition of the slave trade
• Emancipation
• Impact on African/European/American culture, economy, society and politics

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

• Araujo, Ana Lucía, Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade (London, 2017).
• Blackburn, Robin, The American crucible: slavery, emancipation and human rights (London, 2011).
• Curtin, Philip, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History (Cambridge, 1990).
• Davis, David Brion, Inhuman Bondage: the Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (Oxford, 2006).
• Eltis, David, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge, 2000).
• Eltis, David, and David Richardson, Atlas of the transatlantic slave trade, foreword by David Brion Davis; afterword by David W. Blight (New Haven, 2010).
• Heuman, Gad, and James Walvin (eds.), The Slavery Reader (London and New York, 2003).
• Klein, Herbert S., The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1999).
• Morgan, Kenneth, Slavery and the British empire: from Africa to America (Oxford, 2007).
• Rediker, Marcus, The slave ship: a human history (London, 2007).
• Thomas, Hugh, The Slave Trade: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870 (London, 1998).
• Thornton, John K., Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (Cambridge, 1998).
• Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery (London, 1964).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=6864

Key words search

Slavery, Slave Trade, Latin America, USA, early modern, Africa, race, Atlantic