Atlantic system
The trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, south american colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires
Charted company
groups of private investors who paid an annual fee of France and England in exchange for a monopoly over trade to the West Indies colonies
Dutch West India company
Trading company charted by the Dutch government to conduct its merchant's trade in the Americas and Africa
Plantocracy
In West Indian colonies, rich men who owned most of the slaves and most of the land, especially in the 18th century
Driver
A privileged male slave whose job was to ensure that a slave gang did its work on plantation
Seasoning
An often difficult period of adjustment to new climates, disease environments, and work routines, such as that experienced by slaves newly arrived in the americas
Manumission
A grant of legal freedom to an individual state
Maroon
A slave who ran away from his or her master, often a member of a community of runaway slaves in the West Indies and South America
Capitalism
The economic system of large financial institutions- Banks, stock exchanges, investment companies- that first developed in Early modern Europe
Mercantilism
European government policies of the 16th, 17th and 18th century designed to premote overseas trade between a country and its colonies to trade only with their motherland country
Royal African Company
A trading company charted by the English Government in 1672 to conduct its merchant's trade on the Atlantic coast of Africa
Great Circuit
The network of trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas that underlay the Atlantic system
Middle passage
The sea journey undertaken by slave ships from west Africa to the west indies
Songhai
A people, language, kingdom, and empire in western Sudan in west Africa, at 11th century Muslim Songhai Empire stretched from the Atlantic to the land of Hausa and was a major player in trans Saharan trade
Bornu
A powerful west African kingdom at the southern edge of the Sahara in the Central Sudan, important in Trans-Saharan trade and in the spread of Islam
Hausa
An agricultural and trading people of central Sudan in West Africa, aside from their brief incorporation into the Songhai Empire, the Hausa city- states remained autonomous until the Sokoto caliphate conquered them in the early 19th century