question archive Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows
Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows
Subject:HistoryPrice:2.86 Bought7
Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.
"The castle at Elmina* has justly become famous for its beauty and strength and has no equal on the Gulf of Guinea. The castle's garrison typically consists of one hundred Europeans and perhaps as many black African soldiers, all of whom are in the Dutch West India Company's pay.
This castle was brought to its perfect state under the Dutch West India Company after they captured it from the Portuguese in 1637, and they found in it thirty good pieces of brass cannon, large amounts of gunpowder, and a great deal of other ammunition. It was not nearly as strong nor as beautiful when the Portuguese controlled it. Now it looks as if it had been made for a king than for a trading-post in Africa. This proves that the Dutch are the most curious and the most fit to make settlements abroad of all European nations, because they spare neither time, nor money, nor labor in their undertakings.
The Dutch attempted to use their control over the castle to monopolize trade along the West African coast. I was told that the Dutch used to export much gold and roughly eight thousand slaves, most of whom were sent to the Dutch island of Curacao in the Caribbean, from where the Spaniards purchase the slaves. The Dutch also export from West Africa vast quantities of wax, pepper, red wood, cloths, and other goods."
*Located in the modern African nation of Ghana.
Jean Barbot, French Protestant and agent of the chartered Senegal Company (Compagnie du Sénégal), book describing his travels in West Africa, written circa 1682
a) Describe the broader historical situation in Africa at the time that Jean Barbot wrote his book.
b) Explain ONE way in which the passage illustrates the continuing development of the Atlantic in the seventeenth century.
c) Explain ONE way in which Barbot's background might have influenced his comments about the Dutch and the Portuguese in the second paragraph.
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a) The historical situation in Africa at the time that Barbot wrote this book would be the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the 17th century. Barbot was an agent of the French Royal African Company who made voyages to the West Coast of Africa between the 1670s to 1680s.
During this period, the Europeans believed that it was a norm in these lands to sell their countrymen as slaves in exchange for "goods", and that they were being of help to the African people by bringing them to civilization. Barbot notes how anyone in Africa can be sold. Africans sold themselves to avoid famine and death. Many sold their fellow men, their children, and neighbors just as they sold their criminals and captured enemies in exchange for the European goods. In brief, Barbot argues that the black men were inhumane to their own kind.
b) One way in which the passage exemplifies the continuing development of the Atlantic Slave trade would be the restoration of the Castle at Elmina on the Gulf of Guinea. In the narrative, Barbot mentioned how the Dutch West India Company was able to bring the castle to its perfect state after seizing it from the Portuguese in 1637. But unlike the Portuguese who build it for the King, the Dutch restored Castle as a trading post and in order to monopolize the slave trade on the West African coast.
c) Barbot being a Frenchman might likely have influenced his remarks towards the Dutch and indifference towards the Portuguese. In the second paragraph, Barbot states "...the Dutch are the most curious and fittest to make settlements abroad of all European nations, because they spare neither time, nor money, nor labor in their undertakings." The remarks were in comparison to the Portuguese who were not able to maintain their hold of the West African coast. In the bigger picture, it is known how France and Portugal had challenged each other in monopolizing trade in West Africa. History recounts how the Portuguese pioneered trading along the coast as early as the 1530s until the French, English, Dutch, Swedes and the Danes followed around the late 17th century.
