wiki143 - User contributions [en]

Big Oil

2025-06-23T14:43:10Z

62.167.161.157: /* As the Seven Sisters */

{{Short description|Largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors}}
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| image1=2008- Oil and gas industry global net income - IEA.svg |caption1=Globally, net income of the oil and gas industry reached a record US$4 trillion in 2022.<ref name=IEAinvestment_202305>{{cite web |title=World Energy Investment 2023 |url=https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/8834d3af-af60-4df0-9643-72e2684f7221/WorldEnergyInvestment2023.pdf |publisher=International Energy Agency |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230807064513/https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/8834d3af-af60-4df0-9643-72e2684f7221/WorldEnergyInvestment2023.pdf |archive-date=7 August 2023 |page=61 |date=May 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{bsn|reason=Not the proper source for this document|date=May 2025}}
| image2=2007- Profits of energy companies (annual) - stacked bar chart.svg |caption2=After the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], energy company profits increased with higher fuel prices resulting from the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]], falling debt levels, [[write-off|tax write-downs]] of projects shut down in Russia, and backing off from earlier plans to reduce [[greenhouse gas emissions]].<ref name=Reuters_20230208>{{cite news |last1=Bousso |first1=Ron |title=Big Oil doubles profits in blockbuster 2022 |url=https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oil-doubles-profits-blockbuster-2022-2023-02-08/ |work=Reuters |date=8 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331215451/https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oil-doubles-profits-blockbuster-2022-2023-02-08/ |archive-date=31 March 2023 |url-status=live }} {{*}} Details for 2020 from the more detailed diagram in {{cite news |last1=King |first1=Ben |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64583982 |title=Why are BP, Shell, and other oil giants making so much money right now? |work=BBC News |date=12 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422164652/https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64583982 |archive-date=22 April 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref>
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{{Big Oil}}
'''Big Oil''' is a name sometimes used to describe the world's six or seven largest [[List of corporations by market capitalization#Publicly traded companies|publicly traded]] and investor-owned [[list of oil companies|oil and gas companies]], also known as '''supermajors'''.<ref name="reut1808">{{cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oilmajors-production-idUSL169721220080801|title=Oil majors' output growth hinges on strategy shift|access-date=28 April 2011|work=Reuters|date=1 August 2008|archive-date=13 May 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120513182259/http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/01/us-oilmajors-production-idUSL169721220080801|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="nyt2206">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/02/business/worldbusiness/02iht-shell.html|title=Shell will invest despite decline in earnings|access-date=28 April 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2 February 2006}}</ref><ref name="bw29906">{{cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2005-12-11/conocophillips-the-making-of-an-oil-major|access-date=1 April 2016|title=ConocoPhillips: The Making of an Oil Major|date=12 December 2005|work=Business Week}}</ref><ref>Tom Nicholls (2005). ''Nafta''. vol. 56. p. 447. "Whoever coined the term supermajor should have kept some superlatives in reserve. Oil companies may rank as some of the biggest private-sector corporations, but when it comes to oil ..."</ref>{{fcn|reason=Unclear what this source is and how to locate it to [[WP:V|verify]] it|date=May 2025}} The term, particularly in the [[United States]], emphasizes their [[economic power]] and influence on politics. Big Oil is often associated with the [[fossil fuels lobby]] and also used to refer to the industry as a whole in a pejorative or derogatory manner.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/archive/6854296/inside-the-big-oil-game/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240918180905/https://time.com/archive/6854296/inside-the-big-oil-game/ |archive-date=2024-09-18 |title=Inside the Big Oil Game |magazine=Time |date=7 May 1979 |access-date=11 May 2025}}</ref>

Sources conflict on the exact makeup of Big Oil today, though the companies which are most frequently mentioned as supermajors are [[ExxonMobil]], [[Shell plc|Shell]], [[TotalEnergies]], [[BP]], [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]] and [[Eni]], with [[ConocoPhillips]] frequently being included as well prior to spinning off its downstream operations into [[Phillips 66]]. The phrase "Super-Major" emanated from a report published by Douglas Terreson of Morgan Stanley in February 1998. The report foretold a substantial consolidation phase of "Major" Oil companies which would result in a group of dominant "Super-Major" entities.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Högselius |first=Per |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KjdyDwAAQBAJ&dq=energy+and+geopolitics+big+oil+companies++Eni+total+BP&pg=PT80 |title=Energy and Geopolitics |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781351710282 |language=en |quote=In global oil parlance, it is common to talk about the 'seven supermajors' comprising ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Total and Eni. |access-date=9 July 2022}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Reynolds |first=Ben |date=9 June 2022 |title=The 6 Big Oil Supermajor Stocks Ranked From Best To Worst |url=https://www.suredividend.com/big-oil-supermajors/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |website=Sure Dividend}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=OilNOW |date=29 August 2017 |title=The super-majors... what and who are they? |website=OilNOW |url=https://oilnow.gy/uncategorized/the-super-majors-what-and-who-are-they/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Herold |first=Thomas |date=3 March 2017 |title=What are the Big Oil Super Majors? |url=https://www.financial-dictionary.info/terms/big-oil-super-majors/ |access-date=13 October 2022 |website=Herold Financial Dictionary |language=en-US}}</ref> Big Oil previously referred to seven oil companies which formed the [[Consortium for Iran]]; such "'''Seven Sisters'''" were the [[Anglo-Persian Oil Company]] (a predecessor of BP), Shell plc, three of Chevron's predecessors (Standard Oil of California, [[Gulf Oil]] and [[Texaco]]), and two of ExxonMobil's predecessors ([[Jersey Standard]] and [[Mobil|Standard Oil of New York]]).

The term, analogous to others such as [[Big Steel]], [[Big Tech]], and [[Pharmaceutical industry|Big Pharma]] which describe industries dominated by a few giant corporations, was popularized in print from the late 1960s.<ref>C. Wayne Barlow (1969). ''Corporate Packaging Management''. "Even with the price ceilings, gas cost more than it had, prompting consumers to charge that 'Big Oil', and not the Arabs, had used the crisis to squeeze profits from oppressed consumers. Some thought that the oil companies got rich from the ..."</ref>{{fcn|reason=Unclear what this source is and how to locate it to [[WP:V|verify]] it|date=May 2025}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Stephen D. |last=Krasner |year=1978 |title=Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy |series=Center for International Affairs, Harvard University |publisher=Princeton University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctv15r5858
|jstor=j.ctv15r5858 |page=330 |isbn=978-0-691-02182-9 |quote=Kennedy's Treasury Secretary, Douglas Dillon, was a director of Chase Manhattan Bank and thus tied to the Rockefellers and big oil. Nixon's campaigns were partly financed by oil money, and his Secretary of the Interior, Walter Hickel, was an ...}}</ref>{{verify inline|reason=Some details inferred from online sources. The abruptly truncated quotation is also not ideal|date=May 2025}} Today it is often used to refer specifically to the seven supermajors.<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Business in Today's World |volume=1: A–C |page=174 |editor-first=Charles |editor-last=Wankel |year=2009 |quote=The older term Big Oil, used in reference to the cooperative behavior and lobbying of oil companies, is often used now to refer specifically to the supermajors. Each supermajor has revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars, benefiting from ...}}</ref> The use of the term in the popular media often excludes the national producers and [[OPEC]] oil companies who have a much greater global role in setting prices than the supermajors.<ref>{{cite book |title=Green Energy: An A-to-Z Guide |page=331 |first=Dustin |last=Mulvaney |year=2011 |quote=... the oil majors have the power to manipulate oil prices, profiteering at the expense of consumers in North America and Europe. Although the term Big Oil is used in the media, it is not used to describe the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History |first=Brian C. |last=Black |year=2012 |quote=Therefore, Big Oil included large-scale corporate infrastructure that spanned the globe without ever releasing the basic elements that titillated the public: fortune, danger, and bust. Today, the term Big Oil most likely evokes a negative visceral ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Role of National Oil Companies in the International Oil Market |first=Robert |last=Pirog |year=2011 |quote=In the United States, the term 'big oil companies' is likely to be taken to mean the major private international oil companies, largely based in Europe or America. However, while some of those companies are indeed among the largest in the ...}}</ref>{{publisher needed|date=May 2025}} [[China|China's]] two [[State-owned enterprise|state-owned oil companies]], [[Sinopec]] and the [[China National Petroleum Corporation]], as well as [[Saudi Aramco]], had [[List of largest companies by revenue|greater revenues in 2022]] than any investor-owned oil company.<ref>{{cite web|title=Global 500 2020|url=http://fortune.com/global500/|website=Fortune|access-date=16 December 2020}}</ref>

In the [[Merchant navy|maritime]] industry, six to seven large oil companies that decide a majority of the [[crude oil tanker]] [[Chartering (shipping)|chartering]] business are called "Oil Majors".<ref>{{cite news|title=TEN wins long-term suezmax charter with an oil major|url=http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/sector/tankers/article474631.ece|access-date=6 December 2015|work=Lloyds List|date=1 December 2015}}</ref>

== History ==

=== As the Seven Sisters ===
The expression "Seven Sisters" was coined by the head of the Italian state oil company ([[Eni]]), [[Enrico Mattei]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html#axzz3KSBXAvfZ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221212001245/https://www.ft.com/content/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621#axzz3KSBXAvfZ |archive-date=12 December 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals |magazine=ft.com |date=12 March 2007 |access-date=23 October 2022 }}</ref>.

The history of the supermajors traces back to the seven oil companies which formed the "[[Consortium for Iran]]" cartel and dominated the global [[petroleum industry]] from the mid-1940s to the 1970s.<ref name="ft">[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070819102045/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html |date=19 August 2007 }}, by Carola Hoyos, Financial Times. 11 March 2007</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946053-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090413085702/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946053-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 April 2009|title=Business: The Seven Sisters Still Rule|access-date=24 October 2010|magazine=Time|date=11 September 1978}}</ref> The Seven Sisters were:
* [[Anglo-Persian Oil Company]] ([[BP]])
* [[Gulf Oil]] ([[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]])
* [[Shell plc|Shell]] ([[Royal Dutch Shell]])
* [[Standard Oil Company of California|Standard Oil of California]] ([[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]])
* [[Standard Oil Company of New Jersey|Standard Oil of New Jersey]] (Exxon, later [[ExxonMobil]])
* [[Standard Oil Company of New York|Standard Oil of New York]] ([[Mobil]], later [[ExxonMobil]])
* [[Texaco]] ([[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]])
By the 1930s, the Seven Sisters dominated oil production in the world.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Colgan |first=Jeff D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3U-EAAAQBAJ |title=Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-754640-6 |pages=61–66 |language=en}}</ref> The companies owned nearly all rights to the oil in [[Iran]], [[Iraq]], [[Saudi Arabia]], and the [[Persian Gulf]].<ref name=":12" /> The companies established jointly owned companies (such as the [[Iraq Petroleum Company]]) to legally tie their hands together, facilitate cooperation, and prevent cheating on one another.<ref name=":12" /> The companies sought to limit the supply of oil by controlling the speed at which oil fields were developed. From the 1920s to 1940s, they had agreements not to produce oil in the Middle East unless it was in coordination with one another.<ref name=":12" /> After the 1940s, the companies continued to collude.<ref name=":12" /> The discovery of massive oil fields in Saudi Arabia threatened to scuttle the cartel, as control of the oil fields by two companies could undermine existing supply management schemes.<ref name=":12" /> However, the Saudi oil production ultimately became jointly controlled by four of the seven sisters, thus making it easier to maintain coordination between the Seven Sisters.<ref name=":12" />

According to Jeff Colgan, the Seven Sisters faced two major problems. The first revolved around coordinating the activities of the companies so that oil prices would be kept high.<ref name=":12" /> The second revolved around cooperation with the governments of the territories containing the oil reserves: the companies sought to minimize the taxes and royalties paid to the governments.<ref name=":12" /> In terms of dealing with host governments, the Seven Sisters benefitted from the willingness of British and American governments to pressure and coerce the host governments.<ref name=":12" /> The oil companies also slowed down production when taxes and royalties were increased by one host government while ramping up production in other territories with lower taxes and royalties, thus pressuring host governments to keep taxes and royalties low.<ref name=":12" />

Host governments faced a number of hurdles in terms of nationalizing the oil production. First, a number of oil-producing countries did not have independence and were controlled by empires. Second, great powers had installed compliant heads of state in several oil-producing countries, making those leaders reliant on the support of the great powers and unwilling to upset them. Third, a number of oil-producing countries lacked the capital and technical expertise to run the oil production, as well as needed access to North American and European markets. Fourth, oil-producing countries feared that they would be punished by Western governments and firms if they nationalized oil production (as [[Mohammad Mosaddegh|Mohammad Mossadegh]] was when he nationalized the Iranian oil industry).<ref name=":12" />

In 1951, [[Nationalization of the Iranian oil industry|Iran nationalized its oil industry]], previously controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now [[BP]]), and Iranian oil was subjected to an international [[embargo]]. In an effort to bring Iranian oil production back to international markets, the [[United States Department of State|U.S. State Department]] suggested the creation of a [[consortium]] of major oil companies, several of which were daughter corporations of [[John D. Rockefeller]]'s original [[Standard Oil]] monopoly.<ref>{{cite book |last=Beltrame |first=Stefano |title=Mossadeq: L'Iran, il petrolio, gli Stati Uniti e le radici della Rivoluzione Islamica |publisher=Rubbettino |year=2009 |isbn=978-88-498-2533-6}}</ref>

In 1959, the Seven Sisters reduced the price of oil for Venezuela and Middle Eastern producers, which provoked anger among oil-producing governments.<ref name=":122">{{Cite book |last=Colgan |first=Jeff D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3U-EAAAQBAJ |title=Partial Hegemony: Oil Politics and International Order |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-754640-6 |pages=70–72 |language=en}}</ref> This prompted the oil-producing governments to take the initial steps to establish OPEC.<ref name=":122" /> The Seven Sisters threatened the OPEC founders that they would lose market access if they went ahead with their plans.<ref name=":122" />

The head of the Italian state oil company ([[Eni]]), [[Enrico Mattei]], sought membership for his company, but was rejected and since then spread the expression "Seven Sisters".<ref name="ft2">{{cite news |last=Hoyos |first=Carola |date=11 March 2007 |title=The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals |newspaper=Financial Times |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html |access-date=20 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=14 June 1963 |title=Italy: Two-Timing the Seven Sisters |journal=[[Time Magazine|Time]] |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,874858,00.html |url-status=dead |access-date=23 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080213223741/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,874858,00.html |archive-date=13 February 2008}}</ref> British writer [[Anthony Sampson]] took over the term when he wrote the book ''The Seven Sisters'' in 1975, to describe the oil [[cartel]] that tried its best to eliminate competitors and keep control of the world's oil resource.<ref name="sampson">{{cite book |last=Sampson |first=Anthony |url=https://archive.org/details/ony00samp |title=The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Shaped |publisher=Viking Press |year=1975 |isbn=0-553-20449-1 |location=New York |author-link=Anthony Sampson |url-access=registration}}</ref> The term for the oil cartel was further popularized, along with a fictional logo, in ''[[Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior]]'', a 1981 [[apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction|post-apocalyptic]] [[dystopia]]n [[action film]] about apocalyptic fuel shortages.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ohanesian |first=Liz |date=23 May 2016 |title=''Mad Max''–Style Rides Reigned at This Post-Apocalyptic Car Show |newspaper=L.A. Weekly |url=http://www.laweekly.com/content/printView/6954398 |access-date=22 April 2017 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422221211/https://www.laweekly.com/content/printView/6954398 |archivedate=22 April 2017}}</ref>

Being politically influential, [[vertically integrated]], well organized, and able to negotiate cohesively as a cartel, the Seven Sisters were initially able to exert considerable power over [[Third World]] oil producers.<ref name="ft2" /> Despite their market power, the Seven Sisters kept prices stable at moderate levels.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last1=McFarland |first1=Victor |last2=Colgan |first2=Jeff D. |date=2022 |title=Oil and power: the effectiveness of state threats on markets |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2021.2014931 |journal=Review of International Political Economy |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=487–510 |doi=10.1080/09692290.2021.2014931 |issn=0969-2290 |s2cid=245399635|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This was done to not incentivize governments in both the consumer and producer countries to impose regulations on the oil industry.<ref name=":02" />

=== 1973 oil crisis ===
Preceding the [[1973 oil crisis]], the Seven Sisters controlled around 85 percent of [[List of countries by proven oil reserves|the world's petroleum reserves]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Mann |first=Ian |date=24 January 2010 |title=Shaky industry that runs the world |newspaper=The Times (South Africa) |url=http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article272352.ece |url-status=dead |access-date=12 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100127022854/http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article272352.ece |archive-date=27 January 2010}}</ref> In the 1970s, many countries with large reserves nationalized holdings of all major oil companies. Since then, industry dominance has shifted to the [[OPEC]] cartel and state-owned oil and gas companies in [[emerging-market economies]], such as [[Saudi Aramco]], [[Gazprom]] (Russia), [[China National Petroleum Corporation]], [[National Iranian Oil Company]], [[PDVSA]] (Venezuela), [[Petrobras]] (Brazil), and [[Petronas]] (Malaysia). In 2007, the ''[[Financial Times]]'' called these "the new Seven Sisters".<ref name="ft3">{{cite news |last=Hoyos |first=Carola |date=11 March 2007 |title=The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals |newspaper=Financial Times |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html |access-date=20 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Vardi |first=Nicholas |date=28 March 2007 |title=The New Seven Sisters: Today's Most Powerful Energy Companies |work=Seeking Alpha |url=http://seekingalpha.com/article/30922-the-new-seven-sisters-todays-most-powerful-energy-companies |access-date=12 April 2016 }}</ref> According to consulting firm [[PFC Energy]], by 2012 only 7% of the world's known oil reserves were in countries that allowed private international companies free rein. Fully 65% were in the hands of state-owned companies.<ref>{{cite news |last=Allen |first=David |date=26 April 2012 |title=Why Should Bahamas Be In 7% Oil Minority? |newspaper=The Tribune |url=http://www.tribune242.com/news/2012/apr/26/why-should-bahamas-be-in-7-oil-minority/ |access-date=23 April 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Katakey |first=Rakteem |date=26 January 2017 |title=Oil Supermajors' Debt From the Crude Collapse May Have Peaked |publisher=Bloomberg News |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/big-oil-debt-tops-out-as-cost-cuts-combine-with-rally-in-prices |access-date=22 April 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=1 December 1998 |title=Slick Deal? |publisher=[[NewsHour with Jim Lehrer]] |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec98/oil_12-1.html |url-status=dead |access-date=20 August 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217051137/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec98/oil_12-1.html |archive-date=17 December 2020}}</ref>

==== "The Era of the Super-Major" ====
"The Era of the Super Major" was an industry report published by Douglas Terreson of Morgan Stanley on 13 February 1998. Terreson was the top-rated Integrated Oil analyst according to Institutional Investor magazine at the time and had a broad following within the global investment community. After many years of poor industry performance by the Energy sector, Terreson suggested that business models had become obsolete, and that major strategic change was needed across the global Energy sector for value propositions to become competitive with the other parts of the market.

The premise of the report was that "a confluence of industry dynamics would conspire to produce a strategic and financial environment that was conducive to major consolidation activity in the Integrated Oil sector. Significant modifications to the strategic landscape would result, dictating competitive placement and equity market performance for years to come". The report indicated that the phase would be driven by the competitive implications of: (1) the globalization of privatized national oil companies and (2) the rising stature of specialized multinationals. Combinations were expected primarily between Major Oils which would then become "Super-Majors" which was a phrase created at Morgan Stanley in the late 1990s to denote the prototype model for success in the Integrated Oil industry as gains in globalization and scale unfolded.

Within 6 months of publication of "The Era of the Super-Major", BP and Amoco merged, representing the largest industrial combination on Wall Street at that time. The combined value of the stocks of those 2 companies rose significantly and that merger was followed by [[ExxonMobil]], BP-Amoco-Arco, [[ConocoPhillips]], Chevron-Texaco-[[Unocal]], Total-Petrofina-Elf and others. The phase represented one of the largest consolidation phases in the history of the Energy sector. Corporate performance was very positive in Energy through 2007, underscoring the premise that the "Super-Major" thesis would create significant economic value for shareholders:

* Exxon and Mobil merging to form ExxonMobil in 1999
* Total's merger with [[Petrofina]] in 1999 and with [[Elf Aquitaine]] in 2000, with the resulting company subsequently renamed Total (now [[TotalEnergies]])
* BP's acquisitions of [[Amoco]] in 1998 and of [[ARCO]] in 2000
* Chevron's merger with [[Texaco]] in 2001
* [[Conoco]] and [[Phillips Petroleum Company]] merging in 2002 to form ConocoPhillips

This process of consolidation created some of the largest global corporations as defined by the [[Forbes Global 2000]] ranking, and as of 2007 all were within the top 25. Between 2004 and 2007 the profits of the six supermajors totaled US$494.8 billion.<ref>[https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2008/ "Global 500"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180711040327/https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2008/ |date=11 July 2018 }}. ''Fortune''. Accessed August 2008.</ref> Many of these now-merged companies remain in the [[Fortune Global 500]], with ExxonMobil ranking 12th, Total ranking 27th, BP ranking 35th, and Chevron ranking 37th in the 2022 edition of the list.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Global 500 |url=https://fortune.com/global500/2022/ |access-date=16 August 2022 |website=Fortune |language=en}}</ref>

== Present composition ==
The composition of Big Oil is subject to wide debate. Nearly all accounts of Big Oil include [[ExxonMobil]], [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]], [[Shell plc|Shell]], [[BP]], [[Eni]] and [[TotalEnergies]]. All six of these companies are vertically integrated within the industry and operate [[Upstream (petroleum industry)|upstream]], [[midstream]], and [[Downstream (petroleum industry)|downstream]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

=== Possible inclusions ===

==== ConocoPhillips ====
[[ConocoPhillips]] is less frequently counted as one of the Big Oil companies due to spinning off its downstream division into [[Phillips 66]].<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Herold |first=Thomas |date=3 March 2017 |title=What are the Big Oil Super Majors? |url=https://www.financial-dictionary.info/terms/big-oil-super-majors/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |website=Herold Financial Dictionary |language=en-US}}</ref> Additionally, ConocoPhillips in 2022 ranked lower than any of the six major Big Oil companies on the [[Fortune Global 500]], and its revenue was superseded by Phillips 66 in 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Global 500 |url=https://fortune.com/global500/2022/ |access-date=26 August 2022 |website=Fortune |language=en}}</ref>

==== Valero ====
[[Valero Energy]] ranked higher on the 2022 Fortune Global 500 than Eni, though the company frequently touts that it is an independent refiner focused on midstream and downstream operations which does not have significant upstream activities.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chenevey |first=Yoshie |date=28 January 2022 |title=What Valero Owns? |url=https://sport-net.org/what-valero-owns/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |website=Sport-net : Your #1 source for sports information and updates |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Our History |url=https://www.valero.com/about/our-history |access-date=1 September 2022 |website=Valero |language=en}}</ref> In the media, however, Valero is sometimes called a "Big Oil" company and grouped with the other large companies.<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 January 2022 |title=Big Oil's New Ad Campaign Is 'One of the Creepiest' It's Ever Made |url=https://gizmodo.com/valero-essential-for-live-climate-change-1848385742 |access-date=1 September 2022 |website=Gizmodo |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Jake |date=29 July 2022 |title=Major handouts could make Big Oil companies the biggest "beneficiaries" of Manchin's climate deal |url=https://www.salon.com/2022/07/29/major-handouts-could-make-big-oil-companies-the-biggest-beneficiaries-of-manchins-climate-deal_partner/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |website=Salon |language=en}}</ref>

==Influence==
{{See also|The Power of Big Oil|2021–2022 United States House of Representatives investigation into the fossil fuels industry}}
As a group, the supermajors control around 6% of global [[Oil reserves|oil]] and [[Gas reserves|gas]] reserves. Conversely, 88% of global oil and gas reserves are controlled by the [[OPEC]] [[cartel]] and [[National oil company|state-owned oil companies]], primarily located in the Middle East.<ref name="EIA">{{cite web | author=Energy Information Administration | title=Who are the major players supplying the world oil market? | year=2009 | url=http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/world_oil_market.cfm}}</ref> A trend of increasing influence of the OPEC cartel, state-owned oil companies<ref name="ft"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article272352.ece|title=Shaky industry that runs the world|access-date=26 October 2010|work=[[TimesLIVE|The Times]] |location=South Africa|date=24 January 2010|archive-date=27 January 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100127022854/http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article272352.ece|url-status=dead}}</ref> in emerging-market economies is shown and the ''[[Financial Times]]'' has used the label "The New Seven Sisters" to refer to a group of what it argues are the most influential national oil and gas companies based in countries outside of the [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development|OECD]], namely [[China National Petroleum Corporation|CNPC]], [[Gazprom]] (Russia), [[National Iranian Oil Company]] (Iran), [[Petrobras]] (Brazil), [[Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.|PDVSA]] (Venezuela), [[Petronas]] (Malaysia), and [[Saudi Aramco]] (Saudi Arabia).<ref name="NSS-01">{{cite news |url=http://www.ypenergy.org/history/ |title=New and Old Leaders in the Upstream Oil Industry |access-date=20 January 2012 |publisher=ypenergy.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111222183241/http://www.ypenergy.org/history/ |archive-date=22 December 2011 }}</ref><ref name="NSS-02">{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621|title=New and Old Leaders in the Upstream Oil Industry |first=Carola |last=Hoyos |date=11 March 2007|access-date=11 May 2025 |work=Financial Times}}</ref>

Other companies not directly involved in trading oil and gas, but still supplying accessories such as drilling, [[fracking]] and refining equipment, have also been associated with Big Oil due to their political influence. In particular, [[Koch Industries]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.politico.com/story/2012/05/fact-checkers-get-in-on-kochs-big-oil-label-debate-076248 |title=Fact-checkers and Kochs' 'Big Oil' |first=Bob |last=King |date= 13 May 2012 | work=Politico}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.thinkprogress.org/what-makes-koch-industries-big-oil-and-why-you-shouldn-t-believe-the-claims-saying-it-isn-t-b5de5084ed86/ |title=What Makes Koch Industries 'Big Oil' And Why You Shouldn't Believe The Claims Saying It Isn't |first=Rebecca |last=Leber |date=14 May 2012 |publisher=ThinkProgress}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newsroom.co.nz/what-we-now-know-they-lied-how-big-oil-companies-betrayed-us-all |title='What we now know … they lied': how big oil companies betrayed us all |first=Rod |last=Oram |author-link=Rod Oram |date=26 April 2022 |work=[[Newsroom (website)|Newsroom]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://cleantechnica.com/2022/04/25/big-oil-pbs-frontline-series-on-an-industry-that-lies-to-get-what-it-wants/ |title=Big Oil – PBS Frontline Series On An Industry That Lies To Get What It Wants |first=Steve |last=Hanley |date=25 April 2022 |work=CleanTechnica}}</ref> and [[Dan and Farris Wilks|Wilks Masonry]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://prospect.org/power/meet-billionaire-brothers-never-heard-fund-religious-right/ |title=Meet the Billionaire Brothers You Never Heard of Who Fund the Religious Right |first=Peter |last=Montgomery |date=13 June 2014 |publisher=American Prospect}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://public-accountability.org/report/the-money-behind-empower-texans/ |title=The Money Behind Empower Texans |first1=Derek |last1=Seidman |first2=Molly |last2=Gott |date=25 September 2019 |publisher=Public Accountability Initiative}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Gruley |first1=Bryan |first2=Kevin |last2=Crowley |first3=Rachel |last3=Adams-Heard |first4=David |last4=Wethe |date=20 July 2020 |title=Frackers Are in Crisis, Endangering America's Energy Renaissance |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-21/u-s-oil-shale-industry-faces-extinction-amid-shutdowns |work=[[Bloomberg News]]}}</ref> have actively funded lobby groups, think tanks and media outlets aligned with Big Oil.

==Maritime oil majors==
In the maritime industry, a group of six companies that control the chartering of the majority of oil tankers worldwide are together referred to as "'''oil majors'''".<ref>{{cite web|title=Meaning of an 'Oil major' and 'Recognised Oil Majors' |url=http://www.lawandsea.net/CP_Time/Charterparty_Time_Majors_Approval_2Meaning_of_Oil_major.html|work=Law and the Sea|access-date=6 December 2015}}{{dead link|date=May 2025}}</ref> These are: [[Shell plc|Shell]], [[BP]], [[ExxonMobil]], [[Chevron Corporation|Chevron]], [[TotalEnergies]] and [[ConocoPhillips]].<ref>{{cite BAILII|litigants=Dolphin Tanker Srl v Westport Petroleum Inc (The Savina Caylyn) |year=2010 |court=EWHC |num=2617 |division=Comm |date=21 October 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Helman|first1=Christopher|title=The World's Biggest Oil And Gas Companies - 2015|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2015/03/19/the-worlds-biggest-oil-and-gas-companies/|access-date=6 December 2015|magazine=Forbes|date=19 March 2015}}</ref> [[Charter-party|Charter parties]] such as Shelltime 4 frequently mention the phrase "oil major".<ref>{{cite web|last1=McInnes|first1=David|title=Legal aspects of oil major approvals in oil tanker charter parties|url=http://www.lmaa.london|website=www.lmaa.london|publisher=Ince & Co.|access-date=6 December 2015}}</ref>{{nonspecific|reason=URL is of the home page, not this document|date=May 2025}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Energy}}
* Other "Big" industries
** [[Big Four accounting firms]]
** [[Big Soda]]
** [[Pharmaceutical lobby|Big Pharma]]
** [[Big Tech]]
** [[Big Three (automobile manufacturers)]]
** [[Big Three (management consultancies)]]
** [[Big Tobacco]]
* [[Robber baron (industrialist)|Robber baron]], a Gilded Age term for wealthy and unethical 19th-century American businessmen, often applied to Rockefeller of Standard Oil
* [[Energy development]]
* [[Fossil fuel]]
* [[List of largest oil and gas companies by revenue]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|40em}}

== Further reading ==
* Black, Brian C. (2012). ''Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History''. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. {{ISBN|0742556549}}.
* {{Cite book |last=Blair |first=John Malcolm |year=1976 |title=The Control of Oil |url=https://archive.org/details/controlofoil00blai_0 |publisher=Pantheon Books |isbn=0-394-49470-9 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Painter |first=David S. |author-link=David S. Painter |year=1986 |title=Oil and the American Century: The Political Economy of US Foreign Oil Policy, 1941–1954 |url=https://archive.org/details/oilamericancent00pain |location=Baltimore, MD |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-801-82693-1 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Yergin |first=Daniel |year=1993 |title=The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power |url=https://archive.org/details/prizeepicques00yerg |location=New York |publisher=Free Press |isbn=0-671-79932-0 }}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070929134805/http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/224/ "Crude Awakening"], ''[[NOW on PBS|NOW]]'', week of 16 June 2006.
* [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/02/big_oils_bigtime_looting/ "Big Oil's bigtime looting"], editorial from the ''[[Boston Globe]]'', 2 September 2005.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051219182831/http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?Feed=OBR&Date=20051023&ID=5213814 "Big Oil bears brunt over gas prices"], [[Reuters]], 23 October 2005.
* [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9970294 "In heated hearings, oil bosses defend big profits"], [[Associated Press]] (via [[CNN]]), 9 November 2005.
* [http://www.petrostrategies.org/Links/worlds_largest_oil_and_gas_companies.htm List of World's Largest Oil and Gas Companies Ranked by Reserves]

{{Petroleum industry |companies}}

[[Category:Anti-corporate activism]]
[[Category:Multinational oil companies]]
[[Category:Petroleum economics]]

Ernst Rüdin

2025-06-23T09:45:16Z

62.167.161.157:

{{short description|Swiss-born German geneticist (1874–1952)}}
{{for|the Swiss slalom canoeist|Ernst Rudin (canoeist)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix =
| name =
| honorific_suffix =
| image = Ernst Rudin Wearing Swastika.jpg
| caption = Rüdin in 1944
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1874|04|19|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[St. Gallen]], Switzerland
| death_date = {{death date and age|1952|10|22|1874|04|19|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Munich]], [[West Germany]]
| other_names =
| citizenship = 
| fields = Psychiatry, genetics, eugenics
| party = [[Nazi Party]] (1937–1945)
| workplaces = [[Moabit]] (prison), Berlin; [[University of Munich]]; [[University of Basel]]
| patrons = [[Wilhelm Frick]]
| education = [[Burghölzli]] (prison), [[Zürich]]
| thesis_title = Über die klinischen Formen der Gefängnisspsychosen (On the clinical forms of prison psychosis)
| thesis_url = 
| thesis_year = 
| doctoral_advisor = [[Eugen Bleuler]]
| academic_advisors = [[Emil Kraepelin]]
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| known_for = Genetics of schizophrenia; support for mass sterilization and clinical killing of adults and children
| awards = Goethe medal for art and science; Nazi eagle medal (''Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches''),
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo =
| spouse = 
| partner = 
| children =
| parents =
| father =
| mother =
| relatives =
}}

'''Ernst Rüdin''' (19 April 1874 – 22 October 1952)<ref>Julian Schwarz, Burkhart Brückner: [https://biapsy.de/index.php/en/9-biographien-a-z/238-ruedin-ernst-e Biography of Ernst Rüdin] in: [http://biapsy.de/index.php/en/ Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY)], 2016</ref> was a Swiss [[psychiatry|psychiatrist]], [[geneticist]], [[eugenics|eugenicist]] and [[Nazi]], rising to prominence under [[Emil Kraepelin]] and assuming the directorship at the [[Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry|German Institute for Psychiatric Research]] in Munich. While he has been credited as a pioneer of psychiatric inheritance studies, he also argued for, designed, justified and funded the mass [[Sterilization (medicine)|sterilization]] and clinical killing of adults and children.

== Early career ==
Rüdin was born on 19 April 1874 in [[St. Gallen]], Switzerland, the son of Conrad Rüdin, a textile salesman.<ref name=HDS>{{HDS|14607|author= Thomas Haenel}}</ref> From 1893 until graduating in 1898, he studied medicine in [[Geneva]], [[Lausanne]], [[Naples]], [[Heidelberg]], [[Berlin]], [[Dublin]] and [[Zürich]].<ref name=HDS/> In 1899, at the [[Burghölzli]] in Zürich, Rüdin worked as an assistant to psychiatrist [[Eugen Bleuler]], who coined the term ''[[schizophrenia]]''.<ref name=HDS/> He completed his PhD, then a psychiatric residency at a prison in [[Moabit]], Berlin.<ref name=HDS/>

From 1907, Rüdin worked at the [[University of Munich]] as an assistant to [[Emil Kraepelin]], the highly influential psychiatrist who had developed the diagnostic split between 'dementia praecox' ('early dementia' – reflecting his pessimistic [[prognosis]] – renamed schizophrenia) and 'manic-depressive illness' (including unipolar depression), and who is considered by many to be the father of modern psychiatric classification.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U-nKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA23 | title=Abnormal Psychology and Life: A Dimensional Approach| isbn=9781305162792| last1=Kearney| first1=Chris| last2=Trull| first2=Timothy J.| date=11 February 2014| publisher=Cengage Learning}}</ref> He became senior lecturer in 1909, as well as senior physician at the [[Munich Psychiatric Hospital]], succeeding [[Alois Alzheimer]].<ref name=inhumanity/>

Kraepelin and Rüdin were both ardent advocates of a theory that the German race was becoming overly 'domesticated' and thus degenerating into higher rates of mental illness and other conditions.<ref name=domestication/> Fears of degeneration were somewhat common internationally at the time, but the lengths to which Rüdin took them may have been unique, and from the very beginning of his career he made continuous efforts to have his research translate into political action. He also repeatedly drew attention to the financial burden of sick and disabled people.<ref name=man/>

Rüdin developed the concept of "empirical genetic prognosis" of [[mental disorder]]s. He published influential initial results on the [[genetics]] of [[schizophrenia]] (known as dementia praecox) in 1916.<ref name=German>{{cite journal
| title = Ernst Rüdin, 1874–1952: A German psychiatrist and geneticist
| author = Matthias M. Weber
| journal = American Journal of Medical Genetics
| year = 1996
| volume = 67
| issue = 4
| pages = 323–331
| doi = 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19960726)67:4<323::AID-AJMG2>3.0.CO;2-N
| pmid = 8837697
}}</ref> Rüdin's data did not show a high enough risk in siblings for schizophrenia to be due to a simple [[recessive gene]] as he and Kraepelin thought, but he put forward a two-recessive-gene theory to try to account for this.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/schizophreniaepi00gott | url-access=registration | title=Schizophrenia| publisher=CUP Archive | isbn=9780521295598| last1=Gottesman| first1=Irving I.| last2=Shields| first2=James| date=30 June 1982}}</ref> This has been attributed to a "mistaken belief" that just one or a small number of gene variations caused such conditions.<ref name="pmid19759092"/>

Similarly his own large study on [[mood disorder]]s correctly disproved his own theory of simple [[Mendelian inheritance]] and also showed environmental causes, but Rüdin simply neglected to publish his data while continuing to advance his eugenic theories.<ref name="PLOS">{{Cite journal|last1=Kösters|first1=Gundula|last2=Steinberg|first2=Holger|last3=Kirkby|first3=Kenneth Clifford|last4=Himmerich|first4=Hubertus|date=6 November 2015|title=Ernst Rüdin's Unpublished 1922–1925 Study "Inheritance of Manic-Depressive Insanity": Genetic Research Findings Subordinated to Eugenic Ideology|journal=PLOS Genetics|volume=11|issue=11|pages=e1005524|doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1005524|issn=1553-7390|pmc=4636330|pmid=26544949 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Nevertheless, Rüdin pioneered and refined complex techniques for conducting studies of inheritance, was widely cited in the international literature for decades, and is still regarded as "the father of psychiatric genetics".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=1dyB9hgGvkwC Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis] 2013. Eds. John Read, Jacqui Dillon. Pg 35. Citing Steeman (2005) & Straus (2006)</ref>

Rüdin was influenced by his then brother-in-law, and long-time friend and colleague, [[Alfred Ploetz]], who was considered the 'father' of [[racial hygiene]] and indeed had coined the term in 1895.<ref name=Racial/> This was a form of [[eugenics]], inspired by [[social darwinism]], which had gained some popularity internationally, as would the voluntary or compulsory sterilization of psychiatric patients, initially in America.

Rüdin campaigned for this early on. At a conference on alcoholism in 1903, he argued for the sterilisation of 'incurable alcoholics', but his proposal was roundly defeated.<ref name=Racial>[https://books.google.com/books/about/Racial_Hygiene.html?id=hogbxS2Gp1QC Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis], 1988, by Robert Proctor. Pg 96–97</ref> In 1904, he was appointed co-editor in chief of the newly founded [[Archive for Racial Hygiene and Social Biology]], and in 1905 was among the co-founders of the [[German Society for Racial Hygiene]] (which soon became International), along with Ploetz.<ref name=who>[https://books.google.com/books?id=nT-psA9fj_AC&pg=PA212 Who's Who in Nazi Germany] Robert S. Wistrich, Routledge, 4 July 2013</ref> He published an article of his own in Archives in 1910, in which he argued that medical care for the mentally ill, alcoholics, epileptics and others was a distortion of natural laws of natural selection, and medicine should help to clean the genetic pool.<ref name=domestication>{{cite journal|last=Brüne|first=Martin|title=On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenics|journal=Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine|date=1 January 2007|volume=2|issue=1|pages=21|doi=10.1186/1747-5341-2-21|pmid=17919321|pmc=2082022 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

== Increasing influence ==
{{Eugenics sidebar}}
In 1917, a new German Institute for Psychiatric Research was established in Munich (known as the DFA in German; renamed the [[Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry]] after World War II), designed and driven forward by Emil Kraepelin. The Institute incorporated a Department of Genealogical and Demographic Studies (known as the GDA in German) – the first in the world specialising in psychiatric genetics – and Rüdin was put in charge by overall director Kraepelin. In 1924, the Institute came under the umbrella of the prestigious [[Kaiser Wilhelm Society]].

Rüdin returned to Switzerland in 1925, where he spent three years as full Professor of Psychology and director of the psychiatric clinic of the [[University of Basel]].<ref name=who/><ref name=HDS/> He returned to the Institute in 1928, with an expanded departmental budget and new building at 2 Kraepelinstrasse, financed primarily by the American [[Rockefeller Foundation]]. The institute soon gained an international reputation as leading psychiatric research center, including in hereditary genetics. In 1931, a few years after Kraepelin's death, Rüdin took over the directorship of the entire Institute as well as remaining head of his department.<ref name=man>[https://books.google.com/books?id=VIEDR5XLrWsC Man, Medicine, and the State] Pg 73-</ref><ref name="pmid19759092">{{cite journal |author=Torrey EF, Yolken RH |title=Psychiatric Genocide: Nazi Attempts to Eradicate Schizophrenia |journal=[[Schizophr Bull]] |volume= 36|issue= 1|pages= 26–32|date=September 2009 |pmid=19759092 |doi=10.1093/schbul/sbp097 |url= |pmc=2800142}}</ref><ref name="Klee513">[[Ernst Klee]]: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, {{ISBN|978-3-596-16048-8}}, S. 513.</ref><ref>[http://hpy.sagepub.com/content/11/43/235 Psychiatric research and science policy in Germany: the history of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Psychiatrie (German Institute for Psychiatric Research) in Munich from 1917 to 1945] MM. Weber, 2000</ref>

Rüdin was among the first to write about the "dangers" of hereditary defectives and the supposed value of the [[Nordic race]] as "culture creators".<ref name=racial/> By 1920, his colleague [[Alfred Hoche]] published, with lawyer [[Karl Binding]], the influential "Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Im1eBAAAQBAJ Understanding Mental Health: A Critical Realist Exploration] By David Pilgrim</ref>

In 1930, Rüdin was a leading German representative at the First International Congress for Mental Hygiene, held in Washington, US, arguing for eugenics.<ref name=who/> In 1932, he became President of the [[International Federation of Eugenics Organizations]]. He was in contact with [[Carlos Blacker]] of the British Eugenics Society, and sent him a copy of pre-Nazi voluntary sterilization laws enacted in Prussia; a precursor to the Nazi forced sterilization laws that Rüdin is said to have already prepared in his desk drawer.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=JQGAAAAAQBAJ The Eugenics Society, Its Sources and Its Critics in Britain] Pauline Mazumdar, Routledge, 20 December 2005] Pg207</ref>

From 1935 to 1945, he was President of the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists (GDNP), later renamed the [[German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology]] (DGPPN).<ref>[http://www.dgppn.de/history/psychiatry-under-national-socialism/speech-professor-schneider.html Psychiatry under National Socialism: Remembrance and Responsibility] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212024932/http://www.dgppn.de/history/psychiatry-under-national-socialism/speech-professor-schneider.html |date=12 February 2015 }} Frank Schneider, 2011</ref>

The American [[Rockefeller Foundation]] funded numerous international researchers to visit and work at Rüdin's psychiatric genetics department, even as late as 1939. These included [[Eliot Slater]] and [[Erik Stromgren]], considered the founding fathers of psychiatric genetics in Britain and Scandinavia respectively, as well as [[Franz Josef Kallmann]], who became a leading figure in twins research in the US after emigrating in 1936.<ref name=man/> Kallmann had claimed in 1935 that 'minor anomalies' in otherwise unaffected relatives of schizophrenic people should be grounds for compulsory sterilization.

Rüdin's research was also supported with manpower and financing from the [[Nazi Party|German National Socialists]].

== Nazi expert ==
[[File:Nuremberg Trials defendant Wilhelm Frick in his cell 1945.jpeg|thumb|[[Wilhelm Frick]] in his cell at Nuremberg, November 1945]]
[[File:EuthanasiePropaganda.jpg|thumb|200px|This poster (from around 1938) reads: "{{Reichsmark|60,000|link=yes}} is what this person suffering from a [[Genetic disorder|hereditary defect]] costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read '[[Neues Volk|[A] New People]]', the monthly magazine of the [[Office of Racial Policy|Bureau for Race Politics]] of the [[Nazi Party|NSDAP]]."]]

In 1933, Ernst Rüdin, [[Alfred Ploetz]], and several other experts on racial hygiene were brought together to form the [[Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy]] under [[Nazi Germany|Reich]] Interior Minister [[Wilhelm Frick]]. The committee's ideas were used as a scientific basis to justify the [[racial policy of Nazi Germany]] and its "[[Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring]]" was passed by the German government on 1 January 1934. Rüdin was such an avid proponent that colleagues nicknamed him the "Reichsfuhrer for Sterilization"<ref name=inhumanity>[http://www.doew.at/cms/download/b1c46/en_seidelman_max_planck_society.pdf Science and Inhumanity: The Kaiser-Wilhelm/Max Planck Society] William E. Seidelman MD, 2001</ref><ref name=missing/>

In a speech to the German Society for ''Rassenhygiene'' published in 1934, Rüdin recalled the early days of trying to alert the public to the special value of the Nordic race and the dangers of defectives. He stated: "The significance of [[racial hygiene]] did not become evident to all aware Germans until the political activity of [[Adolf Hitler]] and only through his work has our 30-year-long dream of translating racial hygiene into action finally become a reality." Describing it as a 'duty of honour' for society to help implement the Nazi policies, Rüdin declared: "Whoever is not physically or mentally fit must not pass on his defects to his children. The state must take care that only the fit produce children. Conversely, it must be regarded as reprehensible to withhold healthy children from the state."<ref name=racial>[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Science_and_Politics_of_Racial_Resea.html?id=OBsHSzmkYHkC The Science and Politics of Racial Research] by William Tucker. University of Illinois Press, 1994. Pg121. Original transcript: E. Rudin, "Aufgaben and Ziele der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene," Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschafts-Biologie 28 (1934): 228–29</ref>

From early on, Rüdin had been a 'racial fanatic' for the purity of the 'German people'.<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 8991870 | doi=10.1055/s-2007-996402 | volume=64 | issue=9 | title=[Ernst Rüdin--a Swiss psychiatrist as the leader of Nazi psychiatry--the final solution as a goal] | journal=Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr | pages=327–43 | author=Peters UH| year=1996 | s2cid=260156110 }}</ref> However, he was also described in 1988 as "not so much a fanatical Nazi as a fanatical geneticist".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=kaN7AAAAQBAJ Ethics and Mental Health: The Patient, Profession and Community] Michael Robertson, Garry Walter, preface. Original source psychiatrist [[Robert Jay Lipton]] in 1988 book Nazi Doctors.</ref> His ideas for reducing new cases of schizophrenia would prove a total failure, despite between 73% and 100% of the diagnosed being sterilised or killed.<ref name="pmid19759092"/>

Rüdin joined the [[Nazi Party]] in 1937.<ref name=Nazi/> In 1939, on his 65th birthday, he was awarded a 'Goethe medal for art and science' handed to him personally by Hitler, who honoured him as the 'pioneer of the racial-hygienic measures of the [[Third Reich]]'. In 1944, he received a bronze Nazi eagle medal ([[Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches]]), with Hitler calling him the 'pathfinder in the field of hereditary hygiene'.<ref name=who/>

In 1942, speaking about 'euthanasia', Rüdin emphasised "the value of eliminating young children of clearly inferior quality". He supported and financially aided the work of [[Julius Duessen]] at [[Heidelberg University]] with [[Carl Schneider]], clinical research which from the beginning involved killing children.<ref name=man/><ref name="missing">[https://books.google.com/books?id=y61MBAAAQBAJ The Missing Gene] [[Jay Joseph]], 2006, pg142-</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=1Dz45L-oYrEC Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices, Legacies] Chapter by V. Roelcke, Pg106</ref><ref>[http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/12365347 Program and practice of psychiatric genetics at the German Research Institute of Psychiatry under Ernst Rudin: on the relationship between science, politics and the concept of race before and after 1993] by V. Roelcke, 2002</ref>

== Post-war life ==
At the end of the war in 1945, Rüdin claimed he had only ever engaged in academic science, only ever heard rumours of killings at the nearby insane asylums, and that he hated the Nazis. However, some of his Nazi political activities, scientific justifications, and awards from Hitler were already uncovered in 1945 (as were his lecture handouts praising Nordics and disparaging Jews). Investigative journalist [[Victor H. Bernstein]] concluded: "I am sure that Prof. Rüdin never so much as killed a fly in his 74 years. I am also sure he is one of the most evil men in Germany."{{fact|date=June 2024}}

In 1945, Rüdin was stripped of his Swiss citizenship, which he had held jointly with German since 1912,<ref name=HDS/> and two months later was placed under house arrest by the Munich Military Government. However, interned in the US, he was released in 1947 after a '[[denazification]]' trial where he was supported by former colleague Kallmann (a eugenicist himself) and famous quantum physicist [[Max Planck]]{{check|date=February 2015}}; his only punishment was a {{Reichsmark|500|link=yes}} fine.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=D4S13LYI9egC Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope] Jay Joseph. Pg 33-, 48. Original source: [http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2018/New%20York%20NY%20PM%20%20Daily/New%20York%20NY%20PM%20Daily%201945/New%20York%20NY%20PM%20Daily%201945%20-%202116.pdf Created Nazi Science of Murder] Victor H Berstein, 1945, 21 August, PM Daily</ref>
[[File:Karl-Brandt.jpg|thumb|[[Karl Brandt]] on trial, 20 August 1947]]
[[File:WP Josef Mengele 1956.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Photo from [[Josef Mengele]]'s Argentine identification document (1956)]]
Speculation about the reasons for his early release, despite having been considered as a potential criminal defendant for the [[Nuremberg trials]], include the need to restore confidence and order in the German medical profession; his personal and financial connections to prestigious American and British researchers, funding bodies and others; and the fact that he repeatedly cited American eugenic sterilization initiatives to justify his own as legal (indeed the Nuremberg trials carefully avoided highlighting such links in general). Nevertheless, Rüdin has been cited as a more senior and influential architect of Nazi crimes than the physician who was sentenced to death, [[Karl Brandt]], or the infamous [[Josef Mengele]], who had attended his lectures and been employed by his Institute.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=JkXJZtI9DQoC From a Race of Masters to a Master Race: 1948 To 1848.] A.E. Samaan, 8 February 2013.</ref>

After Rüdin's death in 1952, the funeral [[eulogy]] was delivered by {{Interlanguage link multi|Kurt Pohlisch|de}}, a close friend who had been professor of psychiatry at Bonn University, director of the second-largest genetics research institute in Germany, and expert Nazi advisor on [[Action T4]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jWQgAgAAQBAJ Baltic Eugenics: Bio-Politics, Race and Nation in Interwar Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 1918–1940 : Volker Roelcke: 3. Eliot Slater and the Institutionalization of Psychiatric Genetics in the United Kingdom] pg312 & note 71 on pg 323</ref>

Rüdin's connections to the Nazis were a major reason for criticisms of psychiatric genetics in Germany after 1945.<ref name=German/>

He was survived by his daughter, [[Edith Zerbin-Rüdin]], who became a psychiatric geneticist and eugenicist herself {{Citation needed|reason=not otherwise evidenced|date=June 2023}}. In 1996, Zerbin-Rüdin, along with [[Kenneth S. Kendler]], published a series of articles on his work which were criticised by others for whitewashing his racist and later Nazi ideologies and activities ([[Elliot S. Gershon]] also notes that Zerbin-Rüdin acted as defender and apologist for her father in private conversation and in a transcribed interview published in 1988).<ref>{{cite journal
| title = Ernst Rüdin (1874–1952) and his genealogic-demographic department in Munich (1917–1986): An introduction to their family studies of schizophrenia
| author = Edith Zerbin-Rüdin, Kenneth S. Kendler
| journal = American Journal of Medical Genetics
| year = 1996
| volume = 67
| issue = 4
| pages = 332–337
| doi = 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19960726)67:4<332::AID-AJMG3>3.0.CO;2-O
| pmid = 8837698
}}</ref><ref name=Nazi>{{cite journal
| title = Letter to the Editor: Ernst Rüdin, a Nazi psychiatrist and geneticist
| author = Elliot S. Gershon
| journal = American Journal of Medical Genetics
| year = 1997
| volume = 74
| issue = 4
| pages = 457–458
| doi = 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19970725)74:4<457::AID-AJMG23>3.0.CO;2-G
| pmid = 9259388
| url = https://zenodo.org/record/1235464
}}</ref> Kendler and other leading psychiatric genetic authors have been accused as recently as 2013 of producing [[historical revisionism|revisionist]] historical accounts of Rüdin and his 'Munich School'. Three types of account have been identified: "(A) those who write about German psychiatric genetics in the Nazi period, but either fail to mention Rüdin at all, or cast him in a favorable light; (B) those who acknowledge that Rüdin helped promote eugenic sterilization and/or may have worked with the Nazis, but generally paint a positive picture of Rüdin's research and fail to mention his participation in the "euthanasia" killing program; and (C) those who have written that Rüdin committed and supported unspeakable atrocities."<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 23180223 | doi=10.1007/s10739-012-9344-6 | volume=46 | issue=1 | title=Ernst Rüdin: Hitler's Racial Hygiene Mastermind | journal=J Hist Biol | pages=1–30 | author=Joseph J, Wetzel NA| year=2013 | s2cid=207150510 }}</ref><ref name=understanding>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Im1eBAAAQBAJ Understanding Mental Health: A Critical Realist Exploration] David Pilgrim. Pg 51-</ref>

== Partial bibliography ==
* Über die klinischen Formen der Gefängnisspsychosen, Diss. Zürich, 1901<ref name="PLOS" />{{rp|ref. 12}}
* (Hrsg.) Studien über Vererbung und Entstehung geistiger Störungen, 1916–1939<ref>{{cite journal |pmid=8837699 |doi=10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19960726)67:4<338::AID-AJMG4>3.0.CO;2-I |first1=K. S. |last1=Kendler |first2=E. |last2=Zerbin-Rüdin |title=Abstract and review of 'Studien Uber Vererbung und Entstehung Geistiger Störungen. I. Zur Vererbung und Neuentstehung der Dementia praecox.' (Studies on the inheritance and origin of mental illness: I. To the problem of the inheritance and primary origin of dementia praecox). 1916 |journal=American Journal of Medical Genetics |date=26 July 1996 |volume=67 |issue=4 |pages=338–42}}</ref>
* Psychiatrische Indikation zur Sterilisierung, 1929<ref name="PLOS" />{{rp|ref. 21}}
* (Einl.) Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses vom 14. Juli 1933, 1934<ref name="PLOS" />{{rp|ref. 17}}
* (Hrsg.) Erblehre und Rassenhygiene im völkischen Staat, 1934<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rüdin |first=Ernst |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4FnQgAACAAJ |title=Erblehre und Rassenhygiene im völkischen Staat |date=1934 |publisher=J. F. Lehmann |language=de}}</ref>
* Die Bedeutung der Eugenik und Genetik für die Psychische Hygiene. Zeitschrift für psychische Hygiene 3 (1930), pp. 133–147<ref>{{Cite web |title=Die Bedeutung der Eugenik und der Genetik für die Psychische Hygiene. Von Prof. Dr. Ernst Rüdin, Vorstand der Genealogischen Abteilung der Deutschen Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie, Kaiser Wilhelm-Institut München * aus dem Besitz von Ernst Rüdin (1930) {{!}} Galerie für gegenständliche Kunst |url=https://www.zvab.com/erstausgabe/Bedeutung-Eugenik-Genetik-Psychische-Hygiene-Prof/31021306467/bd |access-date=17 April 2022 |website=www.zvab.com}}</ref>

== See also ==
*[[Action T4|T-4 Euthanasia Program]]
*[[Ethnic cleansing]]
*[[Eugenics]]
*[[Nazi doctors]] (list)
*[[Racial hygiene]]
*[[Werner Heyde]]
*[[Werner Villinger]]
*[[Alfred Ploetz]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20141102141828/http://historyofmentalhealth.com/2014/04/18/ernst-rudin/ History of Mental Health: 1874: Ernst Rüdin]}} By Henk van Setten
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040524002859/http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t067/t06712.html The Simon Wiesenthal Center Multimedia Learning Center Online: Ernst Rudin] (nb: page moved)
* [http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/topics_fs.pl?theme=25&search=&matches= International Eugenics]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruedin, Ernst}}
[[Category:1874 births]]
[[Category:1952 deaths]]
[[Category:German eugenicists]]
[[Category:German psychiatrists]]
[[Category:Military psychiatrists]]
[[Category:Historians of Nazism]]
[[Category:Legal history of Germany]]
[[Category:Physicians in the Nazi Party]]
[[Category:Schizophrenia researchers]]
[[Category:Swiss eugenicists]]
[[Category:Swiss psychiatrists]]
[[Category:Swiss collaborators with Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Swiss expatriates in Germany]]
[[Category:Swiss Nazis]]
[[Category:History of psychiatry]]
[[Category:People from St. Gallen (city)]]
[[Category:Psychiatric geneticists]]
[[Category:Swiss emigrants to Germany]]
[[Category:Max Planck Institute directors]]
[[Category:Proponents of scientific racism]]
[[Category:Prisoners and detainees of the United States military]]

Slave Coast of West Africa

2025-06-09T17:27:58Z

62.167.161.157:

{{Short description|Historical name of a region in West Africa}}
{{about|the historical region in West Africa|the slave trade in East Africa|Swahili Coast|the slave trade in North Africa|Barbary Coast}}
{{coord missing|Africa}}
[[Image:Negroland and Guinea with the European Settlements, 1736.jpg|thumb|300px|right|A 1729 map showing the Slave Coast]]
[[File:The Slave Coast on a John Bartholomew & Co. map published c. 1914 (part).jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Slave Coast is still marked on this c. 1914 map by [[John Bartholomew & Co.]] of Edinburgh.]]
[[File:Africa slave Regions.svg|thumb|upright=0.9|right|Major slave trading areas of western Africa, 15th–19th centuries]]The '''Slave Coast''' is a historical region along the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] coast of West Africa, encompassing parts of modern-day [[Togo]], [[Benin]], and [[Nigeria]]. It is located along the [[Bight of Biafra]] and the [[Bight of Benin]] that is located between the [[Volta River]] and the [[Lagos Lagoon]].<ref>Law (1989), p. 46</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Change and Continuity in Coastal Bénin |date=2001 |work=West Africa During the Atlantic Slave Trade : Archaeological Perspectives |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474291064.ch-005 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |doi=10.5040/9781474291064.ch-005 |isbn=978-1-4742-9104-0|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The name is derived from the region's history as a major source of African people sold into slavery during the [[Atlantic slave trade]] from the early 16th century to the late 19th century.<ref>{{Citation |title=Freedom |date=2009-02-16 |work=The Atlantic World |pages=615–660 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511816604.018 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511816604.018 |isbn=978-0-511-81660-4|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="nlmtla">{{cite web |date=10 July 2020 |title=The history of the transatlantic slave trade |url=https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/transatlantic-slave-trade |access-date=26 March 2021 |website=[[National Museums Liverpool]]}}</ref> During this time, this coastal area became a major hub for the export of enslaved Africans to the Americas. European powers, including the Portuguese, British, Dutch, Danish, and French, established forts and trading posts in the region to facilitate the slave trade. The area was so named due to the high volume of enslaved people transported from its shores, profoundly impacting both the local societies and the broader Atlantic world.

The Slave Coast is estimated to have been the point of departure for approximately two million enslaved Africans, representing about 16% of the estimated 12.5 million individuals transported to the [[Americas]] during the [[transatlantic slave trade]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation |last=Fuglestad |first=Finn |title=Introduction |date=2018-08-01 |work=Slave Traders by Invitation |pages=1–18 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/2876/chapter/143478924 |access-date=2024-09-30 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/oso/9780190876104.003.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-087610-4|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This equates to an average of around 20 individuals leaving the Slave Coast each day for over two centuries. A significant number of these individuals, likely more than half, were embarked from the beach south of Ouidah, which lacked formal port facilities.<ref name=":0" /> The other primary port from which slaves embarked was [[Lagos]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Law |first=Robin |last2=Mann |first2=Kristin |date=1999 |title=West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2674121 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=307–334 |doi=10.2307/2674121 |issn=0043-5597|url-access=subscription }}</ref> These figures represent only those who survived the conditions prior to departure, including the harsh waiting and loading periods.<ref name=":0" />

Other nearby coastal regions were historically known by their prime colonial export are the [[Gold Coast (region)|Gold Coast]], the [[Ivory Coast]] (or Windward Coast), and the [[Pepper Coast]] (or Grain Coast).<ref>{{Citation |last=Hall |first=Gwendolyn Midlo |title=Lower Guinea: Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Slave Coast/Bight of Benin |date=2005-09-19 |work=Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas |pages=101–125 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5149/9780807876862_hall.9 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |doi=10.5149/9780807876862_hall.9 |isbn=978-0-8078-2973-8 |authorlink=Gwendolyn Midlo Hall|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{Slavery}}
==Historical background==
{{See also|Triangular trade|Transatlantic Slave Trade}}

=== European contact and initial trade ===
European sources began documenting the development of trade in the "Slave Coast" region and its integration into the [[Atlantic slave trade|transatlantic slave trade]] around 1670.<ref>{{Citation |last=Green |first=Toby |title=Rethinking the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade from a Cultural Perspective |work=The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589 |pages=1–28 |year=2011 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139016407.003 |access-date=2020-08-31 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781139016407.003 |isbn=978-1-139-01640-7|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In the 18th century, intermarriage between European residents and African women was primarily linked to the European forts established in Ouidah.<ref name=":1" /> While most European personnel either died or returned home after short tenures, those who stayed longer often formed relationships with local women and had children.<ref name=":1" />

=== Transatlantic slave trade ===
The transatlantic slave trade led to the formation of an "Atlantic community" of Africans and Europeans in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Le Glaunec |first1=Jean-Pierre |title=Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries |date=2020-05-27 |work=Atlantic History |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0337 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0337 |isbn=978-0-19-973041-4 |last2=Dessens |first2=Nathalie|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>Law (1991), p.307.</ref> Roughly twelve million enslaved Africans were purchased by European slave traders from African slave merchants during the period of the transatlantic slave trade.<ref>{{Citation |title=The end of the Dutch slave trade, 1781–1815 |date=1990-05-25 |work=The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815 |pages=284–303 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511528958.013 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511528958.013 |isbn=978-0-521-36585-7|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Enslaved Africans were transported to the [[Americas]] to work on [[cash crop]] [[plantation]]s in [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonies]].<ref>{{Citation |title=3: Youthful Rebels: Young People, Agency, and Resistance against Colonial Slavery in the British Caribbean Plantation World |work=Child Slaves in the Modern World |pages=64–83 |year=2011 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chapter.370517 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=Ohio University Press |doi=10.1353/chapter.370517 |isbn=978-0-8214-4374-3|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Appendix A: The Dutch Slave Trade to the French Caribbean, 1650–1675 |date=2018-12-31 |work=The Dutch Moment |pages=267–268 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7591/9781501706127-011 |access-date=2020-08-31 |place=Ithaca, NY |publisher=Cornell University Press |doi=10.7591/9781501706127-011 |isbn=978-1-5017-0612-7 |s2cid=239310593|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Ports that exported these enslaved people from Africa include [[Ouidah]], [[Lagos]], [[Aného]] (Little Popo), [[Grand-Popo]], [[Agoué]], [[Godomey|Jakin]], [[Porto-Novo]], and [[Badagry]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mann |first=K |date=2007 |title=An African Family Archive: The Lawsons of Little Popo/Aneho (Togo), 1841-1938 |journal=The English Historical Review |volume=CXXII |issue=499 |pages=1438–1439 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cem350 |issn=0013-8266}}</ref> These ports traded slaves who were supplied from African communities, tribes and kingdoms, including the [[Allada]] and [[Ouidah]], which were later taken over by the [[Dahomey]] kingdom.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lombard |first=J |title=West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century |publisher=Routledge |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-429-49164-1 |pages=70–92 |chapter=The Kingdom of Dahomey |doi=10.4324/9780429491641-3 |s2cid=204268220}}</ref>

The extensive slave trade along the Slave Coast contributed to the development of a diverse population engaged in transatlantic commercial and social networks.<ref name=":1" /> This population played an influential role in shaping both Atlantic commerce and culture.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

=== Abolition ===
The transatlantic slave trade in West Africa began to decline earlier than in other regions.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt31nj49?turn_away=true |title=Commercial Agriculture, the Slave Trade and Slavery in Atlantic Africa |date=2013 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-84701-075-9 |doi=10.7722/j.ctt31nj49.19}}</ref> While the flow of captives from Atlantic Africa is generally considered to have first been restricted by legislation and diplomatic and naval pressure over several decades in the early 19th century, the decline in West Africa started even before abolition laws were enacted.<ref name=":2" /> Most powerful slave-trading countries had begun abolitionist campaigns in 1807, while the volume of slave shipments began to decline in West Africa from 1787.<ref name=":2" /> This was due to colonial legislation creating favorable circumstances for abolition and greater economic opportunities, such as the cash crop revolution, empowering former slaves.<ref name=":2" /> This process influenced the enforcing of abolition through legislation in the remaining countries which were involved in the trade.<ref name=":2" />

==Human toll==
The coast was also called "the White man's grave"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fric |first=Explorador |date=1906 |title=45. Notes on the Grave-Posts of the Kadiueo. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2787741 |journal=Man |volume=6 |pages=71–72 |doi=10.2307/2787741 |issn=0025-1496 |jstor=2787741}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=McCoy, Tim. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/16866452 |title=Tim McCoy remembers the West : an autobiography |date=1977 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=0-8032-8155-2 |oclc=16866452}}</ref> because of the mass amount of death from illnesses such as [[yellow fever]], [[malaria]], [[heat exhaustion]], and many [[Gastroenterology|gastro-entero]] sicknesses. In 1841, 80% of British sailors serving in military expeditions on the [[Niger River]] were infected with fevers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Curtin, Philip D. |title=Disease and empire : the health of European troops in the conquest of Africa |date=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0521591694 |location=Cambridge, U.K. |oclc=39169947}}</ref> Between 1844 and 1854, 20 of the 74 [https://history.stanford.edu/publications/gods-empire-french-missionaries-and-modern-world French missionaries] in [[Senegal]] died from local illnesses, and 19 more died shortly after arriving back to France.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=William B. |url=https://archive.org/details/rulersofempirefr00cohe |title=Rulers of empire: the French colonial service in Africa |date=1971 |publisher=Hoover Institution Press |isbn=0817919511 |location=[Stanford, Calif.] |oclc=215926 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=James |first=Lawrence |title=Empires in the sun : the struggle for the mastery of Africa |date=2017-06-06 |isbn=9781681774633 |edition=First Pegasus books hardcover |location=New York |oclc=959869470}}</ref> Intermarriage has been documented in ports like Ouidah where Europeans were permanently stationed.<ref>{{Citation |last=Robinson |first=Harlow |title="Where the Devil Has He Been?" |date=2019-12-03 |work=Lewis Milestone |pages=219–237 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813178332.003.0013 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |doi=10.5810/kentucky/9780813178332.003.0013 |isbn=978-0-8131-7833-2 |s2cid=219816178|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Communication was quite extensive among all three areas of trade, to the point where even individual enslaved people could be tracked.<ref>Law, Robin. ''The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society''. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. p. 319.</ref>

The trans-Atlantic slave trade resulted in a vast and unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside the Americas. Over a million people are thought to have died during their transport to the [[New World]].<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6445941.stm Quick guide: The slave trade; Who were the slaves?] BBC News, 15 March 2007.</ref> More died soon after their arrival. The number of lives lost in the procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the number of people who survived to be enslaved.<ref name="ReferenceA">Stannard, David. ''American Holocaust''. Oxford University Press, 1993.</ref>

Modern historians estimate that between two and three million people were transported out of this region and traded for goods like alcohol and tobacco from the Americas and textiles from Europe as part of the [[triangular trade]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Zhu |first1=Wei |last2=Li |first2=Lin Lin |last3=Songyang |first3=Yiyan |last4=Shi |first4=Zhan |last5=Li |first5=Dejia |date=9 March 2020 |title=Table 1: Two hundred thirty-two differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened from three profile datasets. |journal=PeerJ |volume=8 |pages=e8731 |doi=10.7717/peerj.8731/table-1 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Historians have noted that though official records state that twelve million enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas from Africa, the actual number of slaves purchased by European slave traders was considerably higher.<ref>[[Ronald Segal]], ''The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), {{ISBN|0-374-11396-3}}, p. 4. "It is now estimated that 11,863,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic." (Note in original: Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature", in ''Journal of African History'' 30 (1989), p. 368.)</ref><ref>Eltis, David and Richardson, David, "The Numbers Game". In: Northrup, David: ''The Atlantic Slave Trade'', 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002, p. 95.</ref><ref>Basil Davidson. ''The African Slave Trade''.</ref> Alongside other forms of trade, this complex exchange also fostered cultural exchanges between these three regions, involving religions, architectural styles, languages, and knowledge.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Le Goaer |first1=Olivier |title=Proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on Sharing and reusing architectural knowledge |last2=Tamzalit |first2=Dalila |last3=Oussalah |first3=Mourad Chabane |last4=Seriai |first4=Abdelhak-Djamel |date=2008 |publisher=ACM Press |isbn=978-1-60558-038-8 |series=Shark '08 |location=New York, New York, USA |pages=31–36 |chapter=Evolution styles to the rescue of architectural evolution knowledge |doi=10.1145/1370062.1370071 |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1370062.1370071 |s2cid=12522305}}</ref> In addition to the enslaved people, free men used the exchange routes to travel to new destinations, and both slaves and free travelers helped blend European and African cultures.<ref>{{Citation |title=3. Rescuing Slaves Today |date=2019-12-31 |work=Ending Slavery |pages=36–60 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/9780520934641-004 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=University of California Press |doi=10.1525/9780520934641-004 |isbn=978-0-520-93464-1 |s2cid=226798869|url-access=subscription }}</ref> After the institution of slavery was abolished by successive European governments, the transatlantic slave trade continued for a time, with independent traders operating in violation of their countries' laws.<ref>{{Citation |title=The slave trade and slavery |date=2007 |work=After Abolition |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780755622245.ch-001 |access-date=2020-08-31 |publisher=I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. |doi=10.5040/9780755622245.ch-001 |isbn=978-1-84511-365-0|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The savage nature of the trade led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. Historian [[Ana Lucia Araujo]] has noted that the process of enslavement did not end with arrival on Western Hemisphere shores; the different paths taken by the individuals and groups who were victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade were influenced by different factors—including the disembarking region, the ability to be sold on the market, the kind of work performed, gender, age, religion, and language.<ref>''Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities, and Images''.</ref><ref name="FreedmensInquiry">[[American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission]] report, page 43-44</ref>

University of Pittsburgh Professor of World History, Patrick Manning, estimates that about 12 million enslaved people were victims of the Atlantic trade between the 16th and 19th century, but that about 1.5 million people died on board ships. About 10.5 million slaves arrived in the Americas. Besides the enslaved people who died on the [[Middle Passage]], more African people likely died during the slave raids in Africa and forced marches to ports. Manning estimates that 4 million people died inside Africa after capture, and many more died young. Manning's estimate covers the 12 million people who were originally destined for the Atlantic, as well as the 6 million people destined for Asian slave markets and the 8 million people destined for African markets.<ref name="online at pp. 119–120">Patrick Manning, "The Slave Trade: The Formal Demographics of a Global System" in Joseph E. Inikori and Stanley L. Engerman (eds), ''The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe'' (Duke University Press, 1992), pp. 117–44, [https://books.google.com/books?id=abvkqNGSTZ0C&pg=PA119 online at pp. 119–120.]</ref> Of the slaves shipped to the Americas, the largest share went to Brazil and the Caribbean.<ref>Maddison, Angus. ''Contours of the world economy 1–2030 AD: Essays in macro-economic history''. Oxford University Press, 2007.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Bristol slave trade]]
*[[Dutch Slave Coast]]

==Notes==

{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* ''Commercial Agriculture, the Slave Trade and Slavery in Atlantic Africa''. Boydell & Brewer. 2013. doi:10.7722/j.ctt31nj49.19. <nowiki>ISBN 978-1-84701-075-9</nowiki>.
* Fuglestad, Finn (2018). "Introduction". ''Slave Traders by Invitation''. Oxford University Press, pp. 1–18. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190876104.003.0001. <nowiki>ISBN 978-0-19-087610-4</nowiki>.
* Law, Robin, "Slave-Raiders and Middlemen, Monopolists and Free-Traders: The Supply of Slaves for the Atlantic Trade in Dahomey c. 1750-1850", ''The Journal of African History'', Vol.30, No. 1, 1989.
* Law, Robin. ''The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society''. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.
* Law, Robin; Mann, Kristin (1999). "West Africa in the Atlantic Community: The Case of the Slave Coast". ''The William and Mary Quarterly''. 56 (2): 307–334. doi:10.2307/2674121. ISSN 0043-5597

==Further reading==
* Law, Robin and [[Kristin Mann]]. "African and American Atlantic Worlds". ''The William and Mary Quarterly'', 3rd Ser., 56:2 Apr. 1999, pp. 307–334.
* Shillington, Kevin. ''History of Africa''. 2nd Edition, Macmillan Publishers Limited, NY USA, 2005.
* St Clair, William. ''The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade''. BlueBridge.

== External links ==
{{Commons}}
* [https://www.visitportugal.com/en The Portuguese]
* [https://cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/hsresources/missionaries/missionaries_early_french French Missionaries]

{{Regions of Africa}}

[[Category:History of West Africa]]
[[Category:Atlantic slave trade]]
[[Category:Historical regions of West Africa]]
[[Category:Coasts of the Atlantic Ocean]]