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This is just a simplified guide. The questions are not central to the discussion in this class, but rather basic starting points.

Prof. Jorge Majfud

End of Atlantic slavery, internal slavery, economic transitions, and European moral justifications

1. How did Gomes Eanes de Zurara’s writings influence European perceptions of Africa and justify the Age of Discovery?
2. What political and administrative features enabled the Oyo Empire to become one of the most powerful states in West Africa?
3. In what ways did the Kingdom of Nri differ from the Oyo Empire in its political organization and methods of expanding influence?
4. How do the histories of the Oyo Empire and the Kingdom of Nri challenge common stereotypes about precolonial African societies?

Gomes Eanes de Zurara (c. 1410–1474)

Gomes Eanes de Zurara was a Portuguese royal chronicler and one of the earliest historians of European exploration along Africa’s Atlantic coast. Serving under Prince Henry the Navigator, he documented Portugal’s early maritime expeditions and helped shape the ideology of the Age of Discovery.

Crónica da Guiné (1453) was to celebrate the achievements of Henry the Navigator and Portugal’s expansion along the West African coast.

Before the 15th century, European prejudice was directed mainly toward differences in religion, culture, language, or political allegiance rather than the belief that entire peoples were naturally inferior. Slavery existed, but it was generally not justified as the inherited condition of a particular race.

In the 15th century, the Portuguese chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara helped reshape this thinking by portraying Africans as uncivilized people whose conquest and enslavement supposedly benefited them through conversion to Christianity. By presenting Portuguese expansion as a divine mission and slavery as an act of charity rather than exploitation, Zurara provided one of the earliest ideological justifications for the emerging Atlantic slave trade and later racial theories.

Gomes Eanes de Zurara did not invent racism, but he was one of the earliest European writers to provide a systematic ideological defense of the enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans. His writings helped lay intellectual foundations that evolved into modern racial ideologies supporting the Atlantic slave trade and European colonialism.

Zurara emphasized that Africans were descendants of Adam and could be converted to Christianity. In the same chapter, he wrote that the captives were «of the generation of the sons of Adam,» recognizing their common humanity even while defending their enslavement.

«…amongst them were some white enough, fair to look upon, and well proportioned; others were less white like mulattoes; others again were as black as Ethiops, and so ugly, both in features and in body, as almost to appear … the images of a lower hemisphere.»

Zurara GE de. Wherein the Author reasoneth somewhat concerning the pity inspired by the captives, and of how the division was made. In: Beazley CR, Prestage E, eds. The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Cambridge Library Collection – Hakluyt First Series. Cambridge University Press; 2010:80-83.

Few other experiences

Oyo Empire (c. 1300–1835)

Not egalitarian. A constitutional monarchy with some representative institutions.

The Oyo Empire was a powerful Yoruba state in West Africa, located in present-day southwestern Nigeria and eastern Benin. Founded around the 14th century, it reached the height of its power during the 17th and 18th centuries, becoming the largest Yoruba-speaking state. The empire was renowned for its formidable cavalry, sophisticated political administration, and its central role in regional and trans-Saharan trade.

Kingdom of Nri (900–1800)

The Kingdom of Nri was more egalitarian than many contemporary states, although it was not fully egalitarian. It combined unusual spiritual authority with a relatively decentralized social and political organization.

Pre-Colonial Africa, 1858

Slavery at the Birth of Capitalism

Modern Slavery

First, it was fundamentally built on race. This was a turning point. European powers didn’t just enslave people they conquered; they developed a toxic racial ideology to justify it, claiming Africans were inherently «lesser.» In older societies, slavery was often a byproduct of war, debt, or crime, and the people enslaved came from all kinds of backgrounds. Modern Atlantic slavery, however, turned African ancestry itself into a permanent badge of servitude.

Second, it was hereditary. Laws were written specifically to ensure that if a woman was enslaved, her children were property from the moment they were born. This effectively locked entire families and lineages into a cycle of permanent bondage. While older systems weren’t by any means «kind,» they often offered at least some paths to freedom—whether through military service, manumission, or religious conversion. That door was slammed shut in the plantation system.

Finally, the sheer scale was unprecedented. We’re talking about an estimated 12 million people ripped from their homes and forced across the Atlantic, with millions more perishing in the horrors of the Middle Passage. This wasn’t just local labor; it was a global, capitalist enterprise. The wealth that built modern Europe and the Americas was inextricably linked to this massive, industrial-scale exploitation of human life.

It’s important to clarify that this isn’t to say other cultures didn’t practice horrific forms of slavery—they did, from ancient Greece and Rome to various societies across the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. But the Atlantic system was unique in its particular cruelty: it combined a pseudoscientific racial ideology, rigid hereditary laws, and a global economic reach into a system of exploitation that remains, by any measure, one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Wall Street

Wall Street’s history is tangled up in both Dutch colonialism and the early American slave trade—two forces that shaped the very layout of New York City. Back in the 1600s, the Dutch West India Company brought enslaved Africans to the colony of New Netherland (which we now know as New York) to clear land, build roads, and raise fortifications. The street itself actually got its name from a defensive wall the Dutch built in the 1650s. By the early 1700s, New York had grown into a major hub for the Atlantic slave trade. In fact, in 1711, the city set up an official, public slave market right near Wall Street. For over half a century, men, women, and children were bought, sold, and rented out at this market, turning New York into one of the busiest slave-trading ports in British North America.

But Wall Street wasn’t acting alone. Major ports all over the world—including Charleston, Richmond, and New Orleans in the US, alongside Liverpool, Bristol, Nantes, and Lisbon in Europe—were deeply embedded in the business of human trafficking. These cities formed a global network, financing, insuring, and executing the trade that connected Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The wealth generated by these slave-labor plantations—producing sugar, cotton, and tobacco—essentially built the modern global economy.

Because of this, many of the financial institutions and universities we recognize today have historical ties to slavery. The connections look different depending on the institution. Some banks and insurance firms directly backed the voyages, accepted enslaved people as collateral for loans, or funded plantation owners. For instance, Lloyd’s of London members insured slave ships, JPMorgan Chase has acknowledged that some of its predecessor banks took enslaved people as collateral, and early leaders of the Bank of England had direct investments in the trade. Even Ivy League schools like Harvard and Brown have traced their early funding back to wealthy donors who made their fortunes on the backs of enslaved labor.

When looking at this history, it helps to distinguish between direct and indirect involvement. Some companies traded enslaved people themselves, while others simply provided the financial plumbing—like loans and insurance—that kept the broader slave economy running. Over the last few decades, a lot of these institutions have started digging into their pasts. Many have published their findings, issued formal apologies, and started funding educational or restorative programs to reckon with how their foundations were built.

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