Plagiarism Declaration

With the arrival of the first slaves from Northern Mauritania in Portugal in 1444 so began the birth of what is now known as the Transatlantic Slave Trade which would forever change the face of the world. However prior to the first sale of slaves from Mauritania to Portugal there was already slavery in Africa, however it had a very different face compared to what it eventually grew into. The slavery practiced in different parts of Africa was not the same as the “chattel slavery” practiced in Europe and America, chattel slavery views slaves merely as a commodity and not important enough to value in any other way. The slavery in Africa was different, for example, slaves in some West African societies filled different positions in society, including positions of important responsibility; they were not restricted to hard labour. Also the way in which people where enslaved differed substantially compared to when the European traders entered the market. Prior to the European traders entering the market slaves where captured as the spoils of war and used to further the victors tribe, however with the arrival of the Europeans there was a monumental shift in how slaves where acquired and their value was reassessed into monetary terms. This situation was further exacerbated by the payment the Europeans made to the African leaders, namely guns and ammunition, these weapons where then used by the African leaders to enslave more people in order to acquire more power and European goods. When the Europeans used guns as payment they inadvertently (or perhaps intentionally) created a massive market in humans and changed the face of African economies by shifting their emphasis away from gold and minerals and toward a trade in slaves. This market led to the destruction of the value of other African goods on the market and basically forced the African leaders into the slave trade as slaves where there most valued commodity Africa had to offer.

 Now that it has been established that there was a pre existing slave trade in Africa the next logical question to ask in deciding if the African slave suppliers are as responsible as the European traders is whether or not they understood the conditions they where selling their people into and understood the consequences of their actions. This question is by no means an easy one to answer as we cannot assume the extent of the knowledge the middlemen had when they decided to trade their slaves for weapons and European goods. Some of the African slave suppliers had experienced slavery first hand yet when they got the opportunity the subjected people to the same hell they had endured, knowing full well what it was like. On the other hand however there where far more slave suppliers who where unaware of the conditions on the ships and the living conditions the slaves would have to endure compared to the no chattel system of slavery present in Africa, so in some ways it seems that certain slave suppliers where fully aware of their actions yet continued despite their knowledge, but on the whole most slave suppliers could not really have understood the conditions they where subjugating their slaves to. The fact that ex-slaves themselves later became slave suppliers themselves, does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that they where as much to blame as the European traders because due to the payment the Europeans used and the value they assigned to the slaves they created a massive demand for slaves which altered many African states economies and made them driven solely by the slave trade, forcing people ,through their greed, to enslave their neighbors and to sell them to the highest bidder. This new economic drive in Africa destabilized the continent in several ways, and the continent itself is still reeling from the consequences of the slave driven trade in Africa. When the Europeans initiated slave trading ties with Africa, they had no way of understanding the far reaching repercussions of their actions. By creating a demand for slaves they shifted many African economies away from trading gold and other precious metals and focused on selling labour, by paying in weapons they encouraged the market to grow as they knew the slaves where captured during battle, giving guns as payment merely led to a larger number of slaves being available at the market for the eager Europeans to buy. When the Europeans influenced the African markets this way it is hard to believe they had an idea of the repercussions of their actions on the African continent, repercussions still echoing today. By encouraging such a large slave trade the Europeans robbed Africa of her healthy young population which would have been responsible for African growth, the extent of this drain on African workers forever changed the face of the continent. The slave trade did lead to the growth of some African states, Ashante and Dahomey for example, whose empires reached from the coast deep into Africa to provide slaves. Another way in which the slave trade encouraged other trade was the traders who started living along the caravan trails and sold food and rations to the people transporting the slave. However these positive aspects of the slave trade are trivial in comparison to the negative effects it had by disenfranchising people and draining a continent of its work force, negative consequences Africa still feels today.

This all leads to one conclusion, that being that although the African slave suppliers may have had knowledge as to the conditions on the ships, they are still not as responsible as the European traders who bought the slaves, the reasons for this where shown to be the fact that the European traders created a huge demand for slaves and centered African economies around the slave trade, effectively forcing the African suppliers hands. The payment used by the European traders is also a factor which shows them to be more responsible for the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade as they paid for slaves in weapons effectively giving the suppliers an easier way to get more slave, this both grew the market for sellers to sell and increased the total number of slaves available for sale as the trade became more lucrative. Finally it was shown that due to the slave trade the face of Africa was forever scarred with much depopulation leading to poor growth, despite small growth in other trade. On the whole it is clear that the Europeans should bear more of the burden of the Atlantic slave trade than the suppliers should as they shaped the markets and orientated them toward slavery.

Bibliography

1. Y Seleti, Looking into the Past (Johannesburg, 2001)

2. Exploring Africa at

3. R.W Beachy, The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa (London, 1976)

4. Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, (London, 1997)

5. Paul E. Lovejoy, Africans in Bondage, (USA, 1986)

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