Slavery and the Slave Trade** *
The capture, sale, and use of slaves on the African continent * had a long history. The ancient Egyptians enslaved people; slavery was an important form of labor in the Roman Empire and in the Muslim states. Africans from south of the Sahara were exported to North Africa and to the Middle East beginning with the arrival of Muslim traders in these regions. Thus, the Europeans who came later continued a well-established tradition of selling human beings as slaves to work for others.
Europeans first appeared along the African coast during the late 15th century, when improvements in the technology of ocean travel made long voyages possible. The Portuguese dominated European activity on the African coasts during the 16th century. In West Africa, the Dutch, French, and British established outposts and forts to compete with the Portuguese and eventually forced them out.
African slaves were imported into Spain's New World possessions in the early 16th century, as well as into the Portuguese possession of Brazil and, somewhat later, into the British colonies of North America. However, it was not until the development of sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations in the Americas that the Atlantic slave trade reached huge proportions, exceeding any such earlier trade. The British became the major traders in slaves, although the French, Dutch, and others also took part.
African societies that had not participated in the slave trade prior to the European presence began to do so. Small African states that lay near the coast served as suppliers to the Europeans and grew into sizable empires because of their new wealth and power. Ashanti and Oyo in West Africa are examples. They supplied European merchants with slaves that they obtained through warfare with neighboring states. These states did not merely trade slaves to Europeans; Oyo, for example, used slaves at its capital to staff its expanding bureaucracy and on plantations to produce the surplus food needed to support it. The Oyo state fell in the early 19th century, partly because it had been disrupted by a slave revolt.
In 1807 the British government declared the slave trade illegal and ordered British merchants to cease trading in slaves.States like Ashanti that had traded directly with the British were forced to find new ways to support themselves, and Ashanti began to export kola nuts to its northern neighbors. Other Africans continued to trade with Europeans who did not accept Britain's decree. The British navy patrolled the West African coast during the first half of the 19th century to enforce the abolition, but slave dealers moved their operations southward; even some slaves from East Africa were sent to the Americas. In many areas slavery was not abolished effectively until the Europeans established their colonial presence late in the 19th century. Until then, Europeans could not stop internal African slavery because they did not have any power or influence beyond the coast.
