Atlantic Communities

            In the Atlantic World, parallels are naturally drawn between the growth in Atlantic communities and the Atlantic slave trade.  Most Atlantic communities were located near major slave ports and were thus directly affected by conditions in Africa and the slave trade.  However, the Atlantic World and its communities did not necessarily grow solely because of the slave trade itself – forces behind the slave trade caused the growth in these communities.  Such influences as local competition in the global economy along with ideals of creating a distinct social identity where boundaries of race and culture became mixed were a driving force in the Atlantic communities.  Whether in Georgia or along the Slave Coast, the people of these Atlantic communities desired to create their own distinct identity.

Bristol attempted to keep a distinct financial identity in the Atlantic as a major slave port in Britain.  Even though its financial primacy was relatively short, Bristol made significant contributions to the Atlantic slave trade.  Its contribution and impact on the slave trade is quite apparent as well as its dependency on the slave trade financially, “For some, indeed, the city’s involvement in slave trafficking in the eighteenth century is synonymous with its golden age, when the city became the metropolis of the west and was a major importer, refiner and consumer of slave-grown American sugar and tobacco” (Richardson, 35).  In order to keep its share in the Atlantic slave trade, Bristol was constantly in competition with its local rivals in Liverpool and London to increase productivity and shorten voyage length to Africa and the New World (Richardson, 42). 

The communities of the Slave Coast became part of the wider Atlantic World through its participation in the slave trade which resulted in a blending of European and African customs.  As Bristol had struggled to retain financial dominance in the slave trade, so too did the slave ports named Ouidah and Lagos along the Slave Coast due to local events such as wars.  Europeans, especially the Portuguese, took advantage of African states that were politically weak which resulted in the spread of Christianity along the Slave Coast.  Europeans married Africans and their families formed a distinct identity along the Slave Coast in which they were not either entirely African or European (Law and Mann, 327-328).  Before the abolition of slavery, there were many European settlements along the Slave Coast – Portuguese, British, and French.  Once the slave trade was abolished, however, the Portuguese community dominated on the Slave Coast.  British and French merchants retreated from the area and essentially had ceased its trade with the area.  People on the Slave Coast began to self-identify themselves different from their neighbors, but retained their special connection with Brazil during the Atlantic slave trade.

In Minas Gerais, African slaves and free blacks who were transported to Brazil through the slave trade desired to form a distinctive identity of community and family in the New World.  The African slaves and free blacks were able to achieve this through the fraternity known as the Our Lady of the Rosary which blended Portuguese and African traditions of religion.  The article’s author, Kiddy, poses the question why slaves and free blacks would join an institution that was European in origin.  According to Kiddy, Our Lady of the Rosary did not make the slaves or free blacks social equals to the Europeans, but it did allow them onto the social playing field (Kiddy, 48).  Africans experienced a sense of “social death” when they arrived in the New World – being cut off from their sense of family and community.  The fraternity allowed the Africans to incorporate and assimilate into the culture of the New World while still creating a sense of resistance among the community to have a distinct ethnic identity through their time of oppression (Kiddy, 55).

The Trustees of Georgia also wished to create a distinct identity in the New World through moral reform and creating the ideal colony.  The Trustees wished to reform and elevate the lower classes of society through physical labor with an emphasis on morals.  The Trustees are often criticized for being overly idealistic, but their efforts created a distinct community in the Atlantic World.  For instance, to elevate the lower class, slavery was banned in hopes of securing employment for the lower classes so that they could compete within the world economy.  The settlers of Georgia, however, often disagreed with the ban on African slavery by declaring whites were naturally unfit to withstand the harsh climate and labor. Many settlers also contended that the British Empire, including Georgia, could not survive and compete with its rivals without slavery.  As Spady states, “The main consequence of not using the correct racial body for labor in Georgia was that Georgian exports were not as competitive with goods exported from South Carolina as they might have otherwise been” (Spady, 241).  Even so, the Trustees desired to make Georgia an ideal colony with a distinctive moral character, “Colonials defined their identity partly by what they would not allow it to become” (Spady, 257).  Once the ban on slavery was lifted in Georgia, however, the Trustees focused their efforts of reform on orphanages in which emphasis was placed on community identity.

Overall, the Atlantic was a driving force behind the growth in the Atlantic communities.  Local competition within the global economy which depended on the slave trade allowed massive financial gains in Bristol and the Slave Coast, but also caused concerns with the social aspects of slavery in Minas Gerais and Georgia.  Even though the Atlantic communities grew in very different ways, they all strove to attain a distinct identity and a feeling of belonging in a demanding global economy.