Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 3

Document Links:

Document 3.1 VENTURE SMITH, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa (1798)

Document 3.2 THOMAS PHILLIPS, Voyage of the Hannibal (1694)

Document 3.3 WILLEM BOSMAN, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (1703)

Document 3.4 OLAUDAH EQUIANO, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 3

Consider the Significance of What Is Missing: These documents contain evidence that tells us much about the conduct of Europeans and Africans in the Atlantic slave trade in Africa and during the Middle Passage. Whose perspectives are included, and what can we conclude about the slave trade from them? Whose perspectives are missing that might add other dimensions to our understanding of this commerce in people?

Assess Historical Cause and Responsibility: What light do these documents shed on the much-debated question of how the slave trade came into being and who was responsible for the growing importance of the institution? Consider what these documents reveal about the roles played by both Europeans and Africans in the Atlantic slave trade while also keeping in mind the extent to which it benefitted and harmed both groups and regions. Make an argument about which group played a more important part in the emergence and massive growth of the practice.

Compare and Contrast: Two of these documents are firsthand accounts of the Atlantic slave trade by white European slave buyers, and two are firsthand accounts of enslavement by African captives. How does each of these documents portray both Africans and Europeans, and what does the body of documents tell us about how Europeans regarded Africans and vice versa? How might these attitudes and assumptions have contributed to the changing dynamics of the slave trade over the course of the eighteenth century?

Integrating sources and the text narrative: In what ways do these four documents support, illustrate, supplement, or contradict this chapter’s narrative discussion of the slave trade? Using specific pieces of evidence provided by these sources, how would you revise or add to the authors’ analysis of the Atlantic slave trade?