THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE

POLITICAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON WEST AFRICA

The slave trade had many effects on Africa. Most of them were, of course,
negative, though we can argue that the slave trade was positive for some African
states at least in the short term. One negative about the slave trade was that it
tended to increase the amount of war that occurred in West Africa. The reason for
this is that European (and American) slave traders did not simply go out into the
African countryside and kidnap their own slaves. Instead, they bought slaves from
the coastal kingdoms. Those kingdoms generally got slaves to sell through war and
through raiding against inland tribes. Because the slave traders wanted more
slaves, the coastal kingdoms were encouraged to wage more wars and conduct
more raids against their neighbors. In addition, those kingdoms were provided with
things like guns in exchange for slaves. This helped those kingdoms have more of a
capability of waging war. This brings us to the one potential positive about the slave
trade. At least in the short term, it helped the coastal kingdoms. Those kingdoms
became richer and more powerful because they were able to get guns, money, and
other things in exchange for the slaves. However, even these kingdoms were hurt
in the long term. This is because the slave trade hurt all of West Africa. First, the
slave trade took away millions of Africans (men more than women) in the prime of
their lives. This badly disrupted both the cultures and the economies of the African
nations. Because they were disrupted, they were less able to progress. This argues
that the slave trade made it harder for Africa to enjoy an agrarian revolution and, in
turn, an industrial revolution. This is because the men and women who could have
helped make these revolutions were being taken into slavery. Because the African
nations did not develop economically and because their societies were weakened,
they were unable to effectively resist the Europeans when the Europeans started to
colonize Africa. Thus, we can say that Africa was badly harmed by the slave trade.
The trade made war more common, harmed the economies and societies of the
nations from which the slaves came, and eventually made it easier for Africa to be
colonized by the Europeans.

In summary, the arrival of Europeans on the West African Coast and their
establishment of slave ports in various parts of the continent triggered a continuous

process of exploitation of Africa's human resources, labor, and commodities. This

exploitative commerce influenced the African political and religious aristocracies,
the warrior classes and the biracial elite, who made small gains from the slave
trade, to participate in the oppression of their own people.

ECONOMIC EFFECT OF SLAVERY ON WEST AFRICA

The slave trade took away millions of Africans (men more than women) in the prime
of their lives. This badly disrupted both the cultures and the economies of the
African nations. Because they were disrupted, they were less able to progress. the
slave trade made it harder for Africa to enjoy an agrarian revolution and, in turn, an
industrial revolution. This is because the men and women who could have helped
make these revolutions were being taken into slavery. Because the African nations
did not develop economically and because their societies were weakened, they
were
unable
to
effectively
resist
the

Graph Depicting the value of an African slave at different

Europeans when they started to colonize Africa. Thus, we can say that Africa was
badly harmed by the slave trade economically speaking. While Western Europe
benefited economically and was able to consolidate political and social identities in
relation to the rest of the world, much of Africa and the Caribbean was destabilized,
creating crises in nearly every aspect of society. Western Europe also experienced
similar problems of unrest and revolution, but because of its dominance of the rest
of the world the pressures that caused destabilization were of a different nature.
Although the types of societal transformations throughout both Africa and the

Caribbean varied, certain trends were evident in each region. In West Africa, elites
profited greatly from the slave trade and thus used it to their own advantage within
increasingly stratified and highly militarized states.
In the Caribbean, the
indigenous population was wiped out and replaced with a new economic and social
order in which the overwhelming majority of the population was African and
enslaved, with a small European and mixed race plantocracy. The emergence of
these types of societies during the globalizing process of the trans-Atlantic slave
trade had enormous impact on the development of each of these regions. The
human cargo of the Atlantic trade came from West Africa. There has been
considerable debate concerning the extent and nature of slavery in various areas of
Africa prior to the European trade. Walter Rodney has argued that on the Upper
Guinea coast, no form of chattel slavery existed prior to the sixteenth century. He
wrote,
"No slave class was necessary to make [the Atlantic slave trade] possible,
because
there was in existence a fundamental class contradiction between the ruling
nobility
and the commoners; and the ruling class joined hands with the Europeans in
exploiting the African masses - a not unfamiliar situation on the African
continent today."

Thus, Rodney argues, the possibility for the genesis of large-scale slaveexportation from Africa was dependent on a hierarchical societal structure in which
rulers could systematically exploit their own people. As certain states rose in
power, other more loosely organized peoples were pressured into forming
militarized states in order to defend themselves. The West Africans were unable to
sustain their country, politically, because of the Trans-Atlantic Trade. Historian,
Kathrin Kubetzek, says in Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Africa, As African rulers
Ideally, trading with countries usually grows a countrys economy through
reciprocity. However, this was not the case with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in
West Africa. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade greatly debilitated the economy of West
Africa. Looking at the relationship between GDP per capita today and participation
in the slave trade centuries ago, Nunn (2008) finds that the slave trade had a
negative long-term effect on economic performance. The main contributing factor to
a countrys economy is its working class or labor force. Africa was losing
approximately 12-15 million West-Africans. Africa was losing it most valuable
resource. These disruptions prevented Africans who were not involved in the trade
from doing business in peace and security without the threat of being kidnapped
and sold to the Europeans".

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY ON WEST AFRICA

The negative impact of the international slave trade on Africa was immense. It can
be seen on the personal, family, communal, and continental levels. In addition to
the millions of able-bodied individuals captured and transported, the death toll and

the economic and environmental destruction resulting from wars and slave raids
were startlingly high. In the famines that followed military actions, the old and very
young were often killed or left to starve. Forced marches of the captives over long
distances claimed many lives. A large number of the enslaved were destined to
remain in Africa - many were transported across the Sahara to the north - which
heightened the impact of the slave trade on the continent. It is estimated that the
population of Africa remained stagnant until the end of the nineteenth century.
Besides its demographic toll, the slave trade, and the Africans' resistance to it, led
to profound social and political changes. Social relations were restructured and
traditional values were subverted. The slave trade resulted in the development of
predatory regimes, as well as stagnation or regression. Many communities relocated
as far from the slavers' route as possible. In the process, their technological and
economic development was hindered as they devoted their energy to hiding and
defending themselves.

FAMILY
The most basic level of negative cultural impact lay in how slavery tore African
family units apart. The trauma of losing young family members, people removed
from the social frameworks that relied upon them to fulfill roles and provide
continuity, took an incalculable toll on the affected regions. The relationships
between different ethnic groups and kingdoms were negatively affected as well.
Societal hierarchies became more rigid as protection from slave traders took
precedence over other matters of state, leading to increased stagnation in cultural
and economic development.
PERSONAL
An area of lasting harm to African cultures lies in
the psychological repercussions of chattel slavery,
defined as seeing an enslaved person as
subhuman, or property. The slave trade reinforced
the stereotypical view of African peoples as
savages, and often contributed to European slave
traders' rationalization that Africans served no
other purpose but as laborers, and their unique
cultures were without merit. In some instances,
depicting freedom
of death over was internalized by
thisPicture
assumption
of inferiority
Africans, and remains a volatile subject many generations late. Some slave groups,
eg. The Igbos, committed suicide in order to avoid becoming a slave the Europeans.

CONTINENTAL

This was the biggest impact that the TransAtlantic slave trade had on West Africa:
the decrease in their population. Statistics,
gathered from Western Civilization: A Brief
History (pg145), state that the TransAtlantic slave trade was responsible for the
forced migration of between 12-15 million
people from Africa. About two-thirds [1]of
the people sold to European trades were men, the majority of those enslaved West
Africans were males which led West Africas sexual demography to become unequal.
Fewer women were captured and sold because they were required to take on the
burden of rebuilding their destroyed families and communities. Europeans took the
West Africans to the Americas for the cultivating of sugar and cash crop. In addition,
what contributed to the population declination was the increase in warfare amongst
African groups. Africans started to raid smaller villages for slaves so that they could
capture and sell them to keep up with the European demand for slaves[2]. Hence,
this lead to civil unrest; West Africans felt insecure and distant in their very own
society due to the raiding of villages.