Disturbing History - DH Ep:47 The African Slave Trade

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

This episode explores one of history’s greatest crimes in all its complexity. We examine not only the European demand that fueled the transatlantic slave trade, but also the African kingdoms, warlords, and merchants who participated in capturing and selling millions of their fellow human beings. We trace the trade from its origins with Portuguese captain Antão Gonçalves in 1441 through its explosive growth after the colonization of the Americas. The decimation of Indigenous Caribbean populations created an insatiable demand for labor, and enslaved Africans became the brutal solution to the sugar plantations’ endless hunger for bodies. The narrative confronts an uncomfortable reality: Europeans rarely ventured into the African interior.Instead, they established coastal trading posts and relied on African partners to supply captives. Kingdoms such as Dahomey, Asante, and Oyo built power through the slave trade, while the Aro Confederacy manipulated sacred religious oracles to funnel victims to European buyers. We examine the gun–slave cycle that trapped African states in a merciless calculation, where participation meant survival and refusal meant vulnerability.From the horrors of the Middle Passage to the Zong massacre, from the barracoons of the West African coast to the seasoning plantations of the Caribbean, this episode lays bare the machinery of human suffering that transported an estimated 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic.This is history as it happened, with all its uncomfortable truths intact. The millions who suffered deserve nothing less than the complete story.

Some stories were never meant to be told. Others were buried on purpose. This podcast digs them all up. Disturbing history peels back the layers of the past to uncover the strange, the sinister, and the stories that were never supposed to survive. From shadowy presidential secrets to government experiments that sound more like fiction than fact, this is history they hoped you'd forget. I'm Brian.

Investigator, author, and your government. guide through the dark corners of our collective memory. Each week I'll narrate some of the most chilling and little-known tales from history that will make you question everything you thought you knew. And here's the twist. Sometimes the history is disturbing to us. And sometimes we have to disturb history itself, just to get to the truth. If you like your facts with the side of fear, if you're not afraid to pull at threads, others leave alone. You're in the right place. History isn't just written by the victors. Sometimes it's rewritten by the disturbed. What you're about to hear is a story that changed the world. It is a story of unimaginable cruelty, vast fortunes built on human

misery, and a web of complicity that stretched across continents, cultures, and centuries. The transatlantic slave trade did not simply happen. It was constructed. It was negotiated. It was facilitated by Europeans, yes, but also by African kings, warlords, merchants, and empires who saw opportunity in the sale of their fellow human beings. This is not a comfortable history. It challenges the simplified narratives we have been taught. It forces us to confront the reality that human beings, regardless of their continent of origin, are capable of extraordinary evil when power and profit are at stake. Over the course of roughly 400 years, an estimated 12.5 million Africans were

forcibly transported across the Atlantic Ocean. Of those, approximately 10.7 million survived the horrific journey known as the Middle Passage. The rest, nearly two million souls perished at sea, their bodies thrown overboard to be consumed by the depths. But those numbers, as staggering as they are, only tell part of the story. For every person who was loaded onto a slave ship, historians estimate that one to two additional people died in the capture raids, the forced marches to the coast, or in the holding facilities known as barracoons where captives awaited their fate. When you factor in those deaths, the true human cost of the transatlantic slave trade may have exceeded 25 million lives, and that does not even account for

the internal African slave trade, the Arab slave trade that predated European involvement by centuries, or the generations of enslaved people born into bondage in the Americas. The story we are about to explore is not one of heroes and villains neatly divided by the color of their skin. It is far more complex and far more disturbing than that. It is a story in which African warlords sold African farmers, in which African kings grew rich on the sale of prisoners they had captured in wars fought specifically to generate human merchandise. In which European merchants, Christian missionaries and colonial administrators created a system of exploitation so vast that its consequences echo through our world today. We will examine

the economic machinery that made the trade possible. We will look at the cultural and political conditions in Africa that allowed it to flourish. We will confront the religious justifications that allowed supposedly devout Christians to participate in one of history's greatest crimes. And we will trace the networks of complicity that linked African coastal kingdoms to European banking houses to American plantation owners. Some of what you are about to hear may be familiar. Much of it, I suspect, will not be. Certain aspects of this history have been deliberately downplayed, either because they complicate preferred narratives or because they raise uncomfortable questions about human nature itself. This is that story. The parts you know, and the parts that have been deliberately

obscured, ignored, or forgotten. To understand how the transatlantic slave trade became the monstrous enterprise it was, you first have to understand that slavery was not invented by Europeans. Slavery has existed in virtually every human civilization since the dawn of recorded history. The ancient Egyptians enslaved, captured enemies. The Greeks and Romans built empires on the backs of enslaved people from dozens of conquered territories. The practice was woven into the fabric of human society long before any Portuguese ship ever reached the African coast. Africa was no exception. Long before European contact, various forms of bondage existed throughout the African continent. However, it is crucial to understand that these systems

were fundamentally different from what would later develop in the Americas. In many African societies, enslaved individuals were often war captives, criminals, or people who had been sold to settle debts. Their status was frequently temporary, and many had pathways to freedom. They could marry into their owner's family. Their children were often born free. They could own property and accumulate wealth. Some rose to positions of considerable power and influence. This is not to romanticize African slavery, or to suggest it was somehow benign. Enslaved people were still stripped of their autonomy. They were still property.

They still suffered. But the chattel slavery that would develop in the Americas, where human beings were reduced to livestock with no legal rights whatsoever, and where enslaved status passed automatically to all descendants in perpetuity, that was something different, something worse. The key distinction lies in the concept of chattel slavery versus other forms of bondage. In chattel slavery, a person is legally classified as property, no different from a horse or a piece of furniture. They can be bought, sold, bread, and worked to death with no more legal consequence than would

attend the destruction of any other piece of property. This total dehumanization, this complete erasure of personhood, was relatively rare in human history before the transatlantic trade. In most pre-colonial African societies, enslaved people retained some form of legal person personhood. They could not be killed arbitrarily. They had certain rights, even if limited. They were often absorbed into the households and lineages of their owners over time. Second and third generation descendants of enslaved people might be essentially indistinguishable from free members of the community. The Arab slave trade had been operating in Africa for

roughly 700 years before the Portuguese arrived. Arab traders had established networks that stretched from the Swahili coast of East Africa, across the Sahara Desert to North Africa and the Middle East. This trans-Saharan trade was brutal in its own right. Captives were forced to march across hundreds of miles of desert. Those who could not keep up were left to die. The mortality rate during these crossings may have rivaled that of the Middle Passage. At the journey's end, captives faced lives of servitude in North African cities, Middle Eastern households, or the harems and armies of various Islamic rulers. Historians estimate that between 7 and 14 million Africans were enslaved through the Trans-Saharan

and Indian Ocean slave trades over more than a millennium. Some scholars put the number even higher. These were devastating numbers, and they created systems and networks that European slavers would later exploit and expand. One crucial aspect of the Arab slave trade deserves mention. Unlike the transatlantic trade, which disproportionately targeted men for plantation labor, the Arab trade often preferred women and children. Women were sought for domestic service and concubinage.

Boys were sometimes castrated to serve as eunuchs, a practice that was common in many Islamic courts. The castration process was horrifically dangerous. Some historians estimate that the mortality rate for this procedure was between 50 and 90%. For every eunuch who survived to serve in a palace, multiple boys died in the process of creating him. This aspect of the Arab slave trade has received relatively little attention, but its human cost was enormous. African kingdoms participated in these trades, selling captives to Arab merchants in exchange for goods, weapons, and horses. The kingdom of Kanem-Bornu near Lake Chad, the various house estates, and the empires of Mali and Songhai, all participate in the

in trans-Saharan slave trading to varying degrees. The Empire of Mali, which flourished from the 13th to the 16th century, was one of the wealthiest states in the medieval world. Its famous ruler, Mansa Musa, who made a legendary pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, was reportedly so rich that his distribution of gold along the route caused inflation in Egypt that lasted for years. Much of that wealth was derived from the trade in gold, but slaves were also an important export.

The Songhai Empire, which succeeded Mali as the dominant power in the region, continued and expanded these trading patterns. The great trading city of Timbuktu was a center of both scholarship and commerce, including the commerce and human beings. Enslaved people from the interior passed through Timbuktu, on their way north across the desert. When Europeans arrived on the West African coast in the 15th century, They did not introduce slavery to Africa.

They found a continent where the trade in human beings was already an established, if regionally limited, practice. What they did was transform that practice into something unprecedented in scale and brutality. The story of the transatlantic slave trade effectively begins with a Portuguese captain named Antam Goncalvez. In 1441, Goncalves was on an expedition to the western coast of Africa, in what is now Mauritania.

His orders were to collect seal skins and oil. But Goncalvez had ambitions beyond his assigned mission. He and his crew captured 12 Africans and brought them back to Portugal. It was not the first time Africans had been brought to Europe, but it marked the beginning of a regular Portuguese trade in African captives. The Portuguese had been gradually exploring the African coast for decades, driven by a combination of factors. They sought a sea route to the spice markets of Asia.

They hoped to find gold and other valuable resources. They dreamed of linking up with the legendary Christian king Prestor John, whom medieval Europeans believed ruled a powerful kingdom somewhere in Africa or Asia. What they found was something else entirely. They found human beings who could be captured and sold. Prince Henry of Portugal, known to history as Henry the Navigator, saw enormous potential in this news. source of labor. At this time, Portugal was a small kingdom with limited resources and

population. The sugar plantations that Portugal was developing on islands like Madeira and the Azores were labor intensive, and local workers were in short supply. Sugar was the oil of the medieval world. It was enormously valuable, enormously labor intensive, and enormously profitable. The Portuguese had learned sugar cultivation from Mediterranean sources and were eager to to expand production. But sugar cane requires constant attention. Planting, weeding, harvesting, and processing all demand-intensive labor, and the work is brutal. Crushing cane, boiling syrup, and working around the mills and vats was dangerous as well as exhausting. Inslave Africans offered a solution. By 1444, the first large shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in Portugal.

A chronicler named Goemes Iand de Zerara recorded the event. in disturbing detail, describing how the captives were divided up like cattle at a market. He wrote of mothers clutching their children, of families being torn apart, of the anguish on the faces of those about to be sold. Zerara himself seemed troubled by what he witnessed, questioning whether the captured Africans truly had souls. But any moral qualms were quickly buried beneath the promise of profit. Zerara's account is significant because it is one of the earliest European descriptions of the slave trade from the perspective of someone who witnessed it firsthand. His descriptions of the suffering he observed are surprisingly vivid and sympathetic.

He wrote of captives whose faces were bathed in tears, looking one upon another. He described how impossible it was to separate the sons from their parents, the husbands from their wives, and the brothers from their brothers. And yet, despite recognizing this suffering, Zerara ultimately justified the He convinced himself that the captives were better off as Christian slaves in Portugal than as free people in their own lands. This kind of moral reasoning, this ability to acknowledge suffering while justifying its continuation, would characterize European attitudes toward the slave trade for centuries. Pope Nicholas V gave the Enterprise the blessing of the Catholic Church.

In 1452, he issued a papal bull called Dumb Diversas, which authorized the King of Portugal to the Church. the King of Portugal to attack, conquer, and subjugate Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to capture their goods and their territories, and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery. Three years later, in 1455, another papal bull called Romanus Pontifex, specifically granted Portugal a monopoly on trade with Africa, and authorized the enslavement of Africans. These papal bulls are significant documents. They demonstrate that from its very beginning the transatlantic slave trade had the full support of the Catholic Church, the most powerful institution in medieval Europe. They provided a religious justification for what might

otherwise have been seen as simple theft and kidnapping. They transformed slave trading from a morally questionable activity into a divinely sanctioned mission. The theology behind these bulls drew on centuries of Christian thought about just war, infidels, and the rights of Christian rulers. It argued that non-Christians had no inherent rights that Christians were bound to respect. That enslaving them was actually an act of mercy, since it exposed them to Christian teaching and gave them the opportunity for salvation. That their suffering in this world was a small price to pay for the eternal life they might gain. This theological framework would persist for centuries, providing cover for one of history's greatest crimes. Catholic and later Protestant

churches would continue to justify slavery on religious grounds well into the 19th century. With the blessing of both the crown and the church, the Portuguese slave trade grew rapidly. By 1480, between 700 and 800 enslaved Africans were being transported to Portugal each year. By 1500, Lisbon had a significant African population, both enslaved and free. The Portuguese established a pattern that would be followed by later European powers. They built fortified trading posts along the African coast. They negotiated with local rulers for the right to trade. They developed relationships with African merchants and middlemen,

who would supply them with captives. Crucially, the Portuguese discovered that they did not need to capture Africans themselves. It was easier, safer, and more profitable to buy them from African traders. This realization would shape the entire subsequent history of the slave trade. But this was just the beginning. The real explosion of the slave trade would come with the colonization of the Americas. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, he did not find the gold and spices he was seeking. What he found were islands inhabited by indigenous peoples, the Taino and Arawak,

who would soon be subjected to a genocide so complete that within 50 years of European contact, their populations had been reduced by an estimated 90% or more. The Spanish conquistadors who followed Columbus wanted labor. They wanted workers for the gold mines they hoped to find, for the plantations they intended to establish, for the construction of their colonial empire. At first they tried to enslave the indigenous population. The incommienda system,

which granted Spanish colonists the right to extract labor from indigenous communities, resulted in conditions so brutal that entire populations were worked to death. The indigenous peoples of the Caribbean had no experience with the kind of intensive, coerced labor that the Spanish demanded. They had no immunity to European diseases. They had no way to escape, trapped as they were on islands now controlled by armed foreigners. And they died. They died by the thousands, then by the tens of thousands, then by the hundreds of thousands. Martolome de las Casas, a Spanish priest who witnessed the destruction firsthand,

documented the horrors in his book, a short account of the destruction of the Indies. He described Spanish soldiers killing for sport, burning villages, torturing captives, and working people until they collapsed. His accounts are so graphic that some historians have questioned whether he exaggerated. The archaeological and demographic evidence, however, suggests that if anything, He understated the catastrophe. But European diseases proved even more deadly than European cruelty. Smallpox, measles, typhus, and other illnesses to which indigenous Americans had no immunity

swept through the population like wildfire. Entire villages, entire regions were left empty. The demographic collapse was staggering. The population of Hispaniola, the island that today comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic, may have been as high as several hundred. thousand when Columbus arrived. By 1548, a Spanish census counted only 500 surviving indigenous people. The Taino were effectively extinct. Similar patterns repeated across the Caribbean and on the mainland. The Aztec Empire, with a population that may have exceeded 20 million, was reduced to

perhaps one to two million within a century of Spanish conquest. The same story played out in Peru, in Central America, and eventually in North America. as well. The Spanish needed new workers, and they found them in Africa. In 1501, the Spanish crown authorized the first shipment of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean. In 1518, King Charles I of Spain granted a license to ship 4,000 enslaved Africans directly from Africa to the Americas. Ironically, Bartolome de Las Casas, the same priest who had documented the destruction of the indigenous population, initially supported the importation of African slaves. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. He believed that Africans were stronger, more capable of

surviving hard labor, and that using African workers would spare the remaining indigenous people. He later deeply regretted this position and spent the final decades of his life as an opponent of all forms of slavery. The floodgates had opened, as sugar plantations expanded across the Caribbean and Brazil, the demand for enslaved labor grew exponentially. Sugar cultivation was back-breaking work. The fields had to be cleared, planted, weeded, and harvested. The cane had to be cut and processed quickly before it spoiled. The mills that crushed the cane were dangerous, and workers frequently lost fingers hands and arms to the machinery. The boiling houses where cane juice was converted to sugar and molasses were like small furnaces. Workers labored in intense heat,

stirring vats of boiling liquid, constantly at risk of burns and scalding. The hours were endless during harvest, with workers sometimes toiling for 18 hours or more at a stretch. The mortality rate on sugar plantations was so high that the enslaved population could not sustain itself through natural reproduction. Plantation owners calculated that it was cheaper to work people to death and replace them with newly imported captives than to provide conditions that would allow for families and children. This cold economic calculation would define the transatlantic slave trade for centuries. Human beings were reduced to expendable units of labor. Their lives measured only in terms of the profit they could generate before they died. The Portuguese colony of Brazil became the

largest single importer of enslaved Africans. The Portuguese had established their first permanent settlement in Brazil in 1532, and they quickly recognized the territory's potential for sugar cultivation. The coastal regions had ideal climate and soil conditions, and the native Tupi people, like their Caribbean counterparts, were dying in massive numbers from disease and mistreatment. Brazil alone would eventually import more than 4.8 million enslaved Africans, any other country in the Americas. The Caribbean islands collectively imported more than four million. The British colonies that would become the United States imported approximately 388,000. That last number often surprises people. The United States, with

its four million enslaved people at the time of the Civil War, imported relatively few Africans directly. This was because conditions in North America, while still brutal, allowed for a self-sustaining enslaved population. In the Caribbean and Brazil, enslaved people died faster than they could reproduce, requiring a constant stream of new imports. The difference was primarily climate and crop. Sugar was by far the deadliest crop for enslaved workers. Tobacco, cotton, and rice, the primary crops of North American slavery, were also brutal, but they did not kill at the same rate. North American planners also found it more economical to encourage families and natural population growth

than to constantly import new workers. This is not to say that North American slavery was somehow less evil. Four million people were held in bondage at the start of the Civil War. Millions more had been enslaved in the previous two and a half centuries. Families were still torn apart. Violence was still endemic. Lives were still destroyed. But the demographic patterns were different, and those differences had long-term consequences

for the populations that descended from the enslaved. Here is where the history becomes complicated. Here is where we must confront uncomfortable truths that challenge simplified narratives of good and evil. Europeans could not have enslaved 12.5 million Africans without African participation. Let me be absolutely clear about what I am saying and what I am not saying. The moral responsibility for the transatlantic slave trade rests primarily on the Europeans who created the demand, finance the ships, built the plantations, and profited from the system. They transformed slavery from a regional practice into a global horror.

But they did not do it alone. European slave traders almost never ventured into the African interior. The continent's geography, its diseases, and the military power of African states made such expeditions impractical and deadly. Malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases killed Europeans at alarming rates. The various African kingdoms and peoples of the interior were well-armed, well-organized, and capable of defending themselves. European military technology, while advancing, did not yet provide the overwhelming advantage it would in the 19th century. Instead, Europeans established trading posts and forts along the coast and waited for African merchants and rulers to bring

captives to them. This meant that the actual capture, transport, and sale of the vast majority of enslaved Africans was conducted by other Africans. The Kingdom of Dahomey, located in what is now Benin, became one of the most notorious slave-trading states in West Africa. The Dahomean economy was built on warfare and the capture and sale of prisoners. The kingdom conducted annual slave raids against neighboring peoples, and its military included the famous Dahomey Amazons, an all-female regiment that participated in these raids. These female warriors, known in their own language as the Mino, or our mothers, were among the most feared soldiers in West Africa. They were recruited as young girls and trained rigorously in combat. They took vows of celibacy and were considered

married to the king. In battle, they were reportedly as fierce as any male soldiers, and they participated fully in the slave raids that were the economic lifeblood of the kingdom. The Dahomey Amazons complicate modern narratives in uncomfortable ways. They were women who achieved power and prominence in a society that otherwise limited women's roles. They were also active participants in one of history's most brutal systems of exploitation. Their existence reminds us that oppression and complicity can coexist in complex ways. King Agaja of Dahomey, who ruled from 1708 to 1740, initially attempted to end the slave trade and develop alternative economic activities.

But European traders refused to buy his other goods at prices he considered fair. Cut off from European trade goods, particularly firearms, Dahomey found itself at a military disadvantage against neighboring states that continued to trade in slaves. Aga relented. De Homi would continue to participate in the slaves, slave trade for another century and a half. This illustrates a crucial dynamic. Once the slave trade became established, African states found themselves trapped in a brutal

calculation. Those who participated gained access to European firearms, textiles, and other goods. Those who refused were vulnerable to being raided by those who did. The cycle was self-reinforcing and nearly impossible to escape. Consider the logic. If your neighbor has guns and you do not, you are at their mercy. If guns can only be obtained by selling slaves, then you must either sell slaves or risk becoming a slave yourself. States that tried to opt out of this system were conquered, raided, or marginalized. Those that participated grew stronger, at least in the short term. This does not excuse the choices made by African rulers and traders. They were complicit in a horror. But it helps explain how the system perpetuated

itself for so long. The Asante Empire in what is now Ghana became another major participant in the slave trade. The Asante expanded their territory through conquest, and prisoners of war were either absorbed into Asante society, used as domestic laborers, or sold to European traders on the coast. The Asante were sophisticated state builders. They developed a complex bureaucracy, a professional army and a distinctive artistic tradition. The famous Golden Stool believed to embody the soul of the Asante nation became a symbol of their power and unity. But that power was built in part on the trade in human beings.

The Oyo Empire in what is now Nigeria was one of the most powerful states in West Africa. At its height, Oyo dominated a territory of thousands of square miles and controlled access to the Atlantic trade for much of the region. The Empire's cavalry made it a formidable military power, and its regular wars with neighbors produced a steady supply of captives for sale. Oyo's power was based on its location at the edge of the Tzetsai Fly Zone. The Tzetsze Fly carries sleeping sickness, which is fatal to horses. This meant that cavalry could not operate effectively in the forested regions to the south. Oyo's cavalry gave it a decisive military advantage over its immediate neighbors, and it used that,

advantage to dominate the regional slave trade. The Kingdom of Congo, in what is now Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, had a more complex relationship with the slave trade. Congolese kings initially traded in enslaved people, but also attempted to regulate and limit the practice. King Afonso I who ruled from roughly 1509 to 1542 wrote letters to the King of Portugal protesting the depredations of Portuguese slave traders and asking for assistance in in controlling them. In one letter from 1526, Afonso complained that Portuguese merchants were corrupting and depopulating his kingdom. He wrote that there were many traders in all corners of

the country, bringing ruin because every day people are enslaved and kidnapped, even nobles and even members of the king's own family. Afonso's protests were largely ignored. Portugal was making too much money to care about the objections of an African king, even one they claimed as a Christian ally. The Congo case illustrates another important dynamic. Some African rulers tried to resist or limit the slave trade, but found themselves powerless against the economic and military pressures created by European demand. Afonso needed Portuguese trade goods, Portuguese missionaries, and Portuguese military support against his rivals. He could not afford to cut ties with Portugal entirely, even as Portuguese traders destabilized his kingdom. In the

In the end, the slave trade contributed to the collapse of the Congolese state. By the late 17th century, Congo had fragmented into warring factions, each of which participated in the slave trade to gain advantage over the others. The kingdom that Afonso had tried to protect was consumed by the very forces he had struggled against. How did millions of people end up in chains? The methods varied, but several patterns dominated. War was the primary source of captives.

States frequently fought each other over territory, resources, and political power. Prisoners taken in these conflicts had traditionally been absorbed into the victorious society, ransomed back to their families, or executed. The slave trade provided a new option. Sell them to the Europeans. As European demand grew, so did the incentive to wage war. Some conflicts that might otherwise have been avoided or resolved peacefully were pursued specifically because of the captives they would produce. Wars became more frequent and more destructive. Historians debate the extent to which the slave trade caused wars versus simply redirecting the captives that wars already produced. The

truth is probably some combination of both. The trade certainly incentivized conflict, but Africa was not a peaceful paradise before European contact. Wars happened for many reasons and the slave trade added another while also making existing conflicts more devastating. Slave raids were another common method. Armed groups would descend on villages, usually at night or in the early morning, and capture as many people as they could. Those who resisted were killed.

Those who could not keep up on the march to the coast were also killed or abandoned to die. These raids were often conducted by professional warriors or by organized bands of raiders. Some were sponsored by states. states. Others operated independently, selling their captives to whoever would buy. The terror they spread extended far beyond the immediate victims, as communities throughout the region lived in constant fear of attack. Olada Equiana, who was captured as a child in what is now Nigeria and later

bought his freedom, described one such raid in his famous autobiography. He wrote of how two men and a woman got over our walls and in a moment seized us both and without giving us time to cry out or make resistance. They stopped our mouths and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Equiano was separated from his sister and passed from owner to owner for months before finally reaching the coast and being loaded onto a slave ship. His account provides a rare firsthand perspective on what it was like to be captured, to be traded from hand to hand, and to ultimately face the horror of the Middle Passage. Some historians have questioned whether Equiano was actually born in Africa or was born into slavery in the Americas and later constructed an African origin story. The evidence is disputed, and scholars continue to debate the matter.

Regardless of his exact birthplace, his description of the slave trade captures experiences that millions of people shared. Kidnapping of individuals was also common. People could be grabbed while working in their fields, traveling on roads, or even, even within their own communities. The chaos created by constant raids and wars made it easier for kidnappers to operate, as displaced people had fewer community protections. Children were particularly vulnerable.

They were easier to overpower and less likely to successfully escape. They could also be more easily controlled and broken during the seasoning process in the Americas. Parents throughout West and Central Africa lived in terror that their children might be snatched away while playing out or helping with daily chores. Judicial enslavement was another avenue. In some societies, certain crimes were punished by enslavement.

As the slave trade expanded, the definition of enslaveable offenses sometimes expanded as well. What might once have resulted in a fine or compensation could now result in being sold to European traders. There is evidence that some African rulers corrupted their own judicial systems to produce more slaves. Accusations of witchcraft, adultery, or other offenses could result in enslavement, and the accusers might receive a portion of the sale price. This created perverse incentives that undermined social trust and the rule of law. Debt bondage could also lead to permanent enslavement. Those who could not pay their debts might be held as laborers until the debt was cleared.

But if the debt was owed to someone participating in the slave trade, that laborer might find themselves on a ship to the Americas instead. Famine and natural disasters also contributed. During periods of drought or crop failure, desperate families might sell children or other family members to obtain food. This was not unique to Africa. Similar practices occurred in many pre-modern societies during times of scarcity, but the presence of European slave traders meant that those sold

might end up in the Americas rather than in a neighboring village. Once captured, people faced the grueling journey to the coast, known as the caffle. Captives were typically bound together with ropes, chains, or wooden yokes. They were forced to march for weeks or even months, depending on how far inland they had been captured. Food and water were minimal. Those who could not keep pace were abandoned or killed. The yoke was a particularly brutal device. It was a forked piece of wood fitted around the neck, with the fork pointing forward.

If a captive tried to run or fell behind, the fork would catch on trees and brush, jerking them back. Multiple captives could be linked together with chains or ropes connecting their yokes, making escape nearly impossible. The death rate during these forced marches was significant, though difficult to quantify. Some historians estimate that for every captive who reached the coast alive, one or two others died along the way. Disease, exhaustion, starvation, and violence all took their toll. At the coast, captives were held in barracoons, which were essentially large holding pens or warehouses. There they waited, sometimes for months, for a slave ship to arrive. Conditions in the barracoons were terrible.

Disease was rampant. Food was often inadequate. Violence and abuse from guards were common. The barracoons served multiple purposes. They allowed slave traders to accumulate enough captives to fill a ship. They provided time to fatten up captives who had grown thin during the march. They gave European traders the opportunity to inspect potential purchases before committing to buy. When a ship arrived, European traders or their agents would inspect the captives.

They looked for signs of disease or physical weakness. They examined teeth, eyes, and limbs. They subjected men, women, and children to humiliating physical examines. examinations. Those deemed unfit for sale were rejected. These inspections were dehumanizing in the extreme. People were stripped naked and examined like livestock. Traders looked for signs of aging, injury, or illness that might reduce a captive's value or lifespan. They assessed potential for labor, for reproduction, for survival. Human beings were reduced to collections of physical attributes to be evaluated and priced. Once purchased, captives were branded with hot irons,

marking them as the property of a particular trader or company. The brands were typically placed on the chest, shoulder, or back. They were painful to receive and left permanent scars. They were also practical, allowing traders to identify their property if captives escaped or were mixed with those belonging to other traders. Some captives were branded multiple times as they passed from owner to owner. A person might bear the marks of an African trader, a European company, and ultimately a plantation owner in the Americas. Their bodies became records of their journey through the slave trade system.

After branding captives were loaded onto ships for the Middle Passage, the Middle Passage was the leg of the triangular trade route that brought enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas. It was, by any measure, one of the most horrific experiences in human history. The voyage typically lasted between six and 12 weeks, depending on weather conditions and the destination. During that time, hundreds of human beings were packed into the hold of a wooden ship in conditions almost beyond imagination. Slave ships were designed or more accurately redesigned to maximize the number of bodies they could carry. In what was called tight packing, captives were arranged like spoons in a drawer.

Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. Each person allocated a space roughly 16 inches wide and 5.5 feet long. The height between decks was often less than 5 feet, meaning that adults could not stand upright. Some ships were even more crowded. The infamous slave ship Brooks, whose deck plans became a powerful tool for abolitionists, was designed to carry 454 people under the regulations that existed at the time. But records show it sometimes carried over 600.

The published diagram of the Brooks, showing rows of human bodies packed together with barely room to breathe, shocked European audiences and helped turn public opinion against the trade. Men were typically chained together in pairs, ankle to ankle. Women and children were sometimes unchained but confined to separate sections of the ship. Everyone was forced to lie on their backs or sides for most of the journey. The chains served multiple purposes. They prevented escape and rebellion. They allowed the crew to control the movement of captives,

but they also caused tremendous suffering. The iron cuffs cut into flesh. The weight of the chains made movement painful. When storms caused the ship to roll, chained captives could be dragged across rough wooden decks, tearing skin from their bodies. The heat in the hold was oppressive. With hundreds of bodies packed together,

little ventilation, and the tropical sun beating down on the deck above. Temperatures could become unbearable. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, vomit, blood, and human waste. During storms, the hatches might be closed for safety, cutting off even the minimal air circulation that normally existed. Captives could suffocate in these conditions. Some ships lost dozens of people during single storms, not from drowning, but from lack of air.

Because captives could not move freely, they were forced to relieve themselves where they lay. Some ships had buckets for this purpose, but in rough weather or crowded conditions, these were often impossible to use. The decks became covered in filth. Dysentery and other diseases spread rapidly in these conditions. The smell of a slave ship could reportedly be detected from miles away. Sailors on other vessels described a distinctive odor that warned them when a slaver was nearby. The stench came from the combination of human waste, vomit, blood, and death that accumulated in the hold during weeks at sea.

Alexander Falconbridge, a British surgeon who worked on slave ships before becoming an abolitionist, described the scene below decks. He wrote that the floor of the hold was so covered with blood and mucus, which had proceeded from those afflicted with the flux, that it resembled a slaughterhouse. Falcon Bridge provided detailed testimony to Parliament about conditions on slave ships. He described how captives were brought up on deck periodically for exercise and fresh air, but that many were too weak or sick to stand. He wrote of corpses lying among the living because the crew had not yet removed them.

He documented the casual brutality of sailors who beat captives for any reason or no reason at all. Disease was the biggest killer on the Middle Passage. Dysentery, smallpox, measles, scurvy, and various fevers swept through the holds. When one person became sick, the disease spread rapidly through the cramped quarters. Crew members sometimes refused to enter the hold because the smell and conditions were so terrible. Dysentery, which sailors called the flux or the bloody flux, was particularly devastating. It caused severe diarrhea, dehydration, and eventual death. In the crowded conditions of a slave ship, where people lay chained next to each other and could not control their bodily functions, the disease spread relentlessly.

Some ships lost half or more of their human cargo to dysentery alone. Smallpox was another major killer. When an outbreak occurred, there was no way to isolate the sick from the healthy. The disease swept through the hold, leaving survivors scarred and many others dead. Some ships arrived in the Americas with only a fraction of the captives they had loaded in Africa. Those who died were simply thrown overboard. Their bodies fed the sharks that followed slave ships across the Atlantic, drawn by the regular supply of corpses and human waste.

Sharks became so associated with slave ships that their presence was seen as a reliable indicator that a slaver was nearby. Sailors described schools of sharks trailing ships for weeks, growing fat on the dead. dead. The psychological impact on captives who witnessed bodies being thrown to the sharks must have been immense. The dead were not the only ones who went into the water. Sick captives who were judged unlikely to survive were sometimes thrown overboard alive to prevent them from spreading disease or to collect insurance money. Ships captains could claim insurance for enslaved people lost at sea, but not for those who died of illness. The most notorious example of this practice was the Zong Massacre of 1781. The Zong was a British slave ship that had been

at sea for months due to navigation errors and was running low on water. The captain, Luke Collingwood, ordered the crew to throw 132 sick and weak captives overboard, calculating that he could claim insurance money for the lost cargo. The murders took place over several days. Captives were brought up on deck in groups, their chains removed and then thrown into the Some reportedly begged for mercy. Others fought back and were killed in the struggle. At least 10 captives chose to jump themselves rather than wait to be thrown. The subsequent insurance case, in which the ship's owners tried to collect payment for the murdered captives,

became a cause celebra for the abolitionist movement. The case highlighted the fact that under British law, enslaved people were legally property, and their murder was treated as a financial dispute rather than a crime. No one was ever prosecuted for the Zong Massacre. The insurance claim was denied on technical grounds, but the murders themselves went unpunished. The case demonstrated more clearly than any abstract argument the fundamental inhumanity of treating human beings as property. Sexual violence was endemic on slave ships. Women and girls were routinely raped by crew members.

They were taken from the hold to the officer's quarters. They were assaulted on deck in view of other captives. pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases were common results. This sexual violence served multiple purposes for the crew. It was about power and domination. It was about asserting control over captives' bodies. It was sometimes justified as a way to break the spirit of captives or to demonstrate that they had no rights that the crew was bound to respect.

Captives on slave ships resisted in whatever ways they could. Hunger strikes were common. ship captains responded with force feeding, using metal instruments to pry open mouths and force food down throats. Suicides occurred, with captives throwing themselves overboard if they got the chance, or refusing food until they died. Many captives believed that death would allow them to return home, that their spirits would travel back to Africa to be with their ancestors. This belief made death less terrifying and suicide more appealing. Ship captains tried to discourage this belief, sometimes mutilating the bodies of those who killed themselves to

suggest that their spirits would be damaged as well. Full-scale rebellions also occurred, though they were rare. The most famous was the rebellion aboard the Amistad in 1839, in which captives led by a man named Sengbe Pia, known in the west as Joseph Sinkai, killed the captain and took control of the ship. After a long legal battle in the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the Africans had been illegally enslaved and they were eventually returned to Sierra Leone. But for every successful rebellion, there were dozens of failed attempts. Ship crews were armed and experienced in suppressing resistance. The consequences for those who rebelled and failed were severe, including torture,

dismemberment, and execution as examples to the other captives. Rebellions were most likely to occur while ships were still near the African coast, when captives still had hope of reaching shore. Once ships were deep in the Atlantic, the chances of a successful rebellion dropped dramatically. Even if captives could overcome the crew, they generally did not know how to navigate the ship back to Africa. Overall, the mortality rate on the Middle Passage

averaged between 15 and 20%, though it could be much higher on individual voyages. Of the approximately 12.5 million Africans who were loaded onto slave ships, an estimated 1.8 million died before reaching the Americas. These statistics, as horrifying as they are, do not capture the full trauma of the experience. Those who survived the Middle Passage carried physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives. Many arrived in the Americas broken in body and spirit, only to face further horrors in the form of seasoning and lifelong bondage.

We have established that African participation was essential to the functioning of the transit Atlantic slave trade. But who exactly were these African slave traders and what motivated them to sell their fellow human beings? First, it is important to recognize that for most African slave traders, the people they sold were not their own people in any meaningful sense. Africa is an enormous continent with thousands of distinct ethnic groups, languages, and cultures. The concept of a unified African identity did not exist. A Yoruba trader selling Igbo captives did not see himself as selling his own people any more than an English merchant selling French prisoners would have felt he was betraying his own. This does not excuse the

practice. It simply explains the mindset. Ethnic, linguistic, and political boundaries mattered enormously. Those outside your group were foreigners, and their fate was of little concern. The idea of African solidarity, of a shared identity among all people of African descent, is largely a product of the diaspora experience. It emerged among enslaved people in the Americas who found themselves grouped together regardless of their original ethnicities. It was strengthened by the experience of racial oppression that treated all Africans and their descendants as a single category. But in Africa itself, before and during the slave trade, such solidarity was largely absent. The motivations of African slave traders were diverse, but can be broadly categorized.

Economic gain was the most obvious motivation. The slave trade brought enormous wealth to those who participated. European goods, particularly firearms, textiles, iron, copper, and alcohol, flowed into Africa in exchange for human beings. African elites accumulated these goods and used them to enhance their power, wealth, and social status. The goods Europeans offered were not merely luxuries. Many were strategically vital. Iron and copper were essential for tool-making and weapons.

Textiles could be used to pay soldiers, reward allies, and display status. And firearms were transforming the nature of warfare across the continent. Firearms were particularly important. They revolutionized African warfare and created a deadly feedback loop. States that participated in the slave trade could acquire guns. States with guns could more easily capture people to sell as slaves. States that refused to participate found themselves militarily disadvantaged and vulnerable to being raided themselves. The guns of this era were not the sophisticated weapons of later centuries.

They were flintlock muskets, slow to reload and prone to misfiring. But they were still deadly, and in the hands of trained soldiers, they provided a significant advantage over opponents armed only with traditional weapons. Some historians estimate that Europeans exported 20 million or more firearms to Africa during the slave trade era. Many of these were specifically traded for slaves. The relationship between guns and slaves became so close that in some regions, the price of a slave was quoted in guns. Political power was another key motivation. The slave trade could be used to eliminate rivals, punish enemies, and solidify control. A king who could exile his opponents to slavery in the Americas no longer had to worry about them organizing rebellions or

challenging his authority. In some kingdoms, the threat of enslavement became a tool of internal control. Those who challenged the king, who violated his laws, or who simply fell out of favor, might find themselves sold. This created a climate of fear that discouraged dissent and strengthened royal authority. The slave trade also served as a tool of state building. The wealth that generated funded armies, bureaucracies, and public works. States like Dahomey and Asante used slave trade revenue to expand their territories and centralize their governments. Dahomey in particular used the slave trade to transform itself from a minor inland kingdom into a regional power. The annual slave raids that Dahomey conducted against its neighbors

were not just economic ventures. They were also military campaigns that expanded Dahomean territory and demonstrated the kingdom's power. Some African rulers seemed to have genuinely believed they were acting in the best interests of their people. By trading with Europeans, they gained access to goods and technologies that strengthened their states. In a world where the alternative was being victimized by slave raiders, participating in the trade could seem like the lesser evil. This does not make them sympathetic figures. They were complicit in one of history's greatest crimes.

But understanding their perspective helps explain how the system functioned. It is also worth noting that some Africans did, resist the slave trade. We have already mentioned King Afonso of Congo, who protested the trade and tried to regulate it. Other rulers made similar efforts. Some communities organized resistance to slave raids. They built fortified villages, formed defensive alliances, and fought back against raiders. These efforts were often unsuccessful in the face of better-armed opponents, but they demonstrate that not all Africans accepted the slave trade passively. In the interior of some regions, communities developed elaborate systems of defense.

Villages were built on hilltops or surrounded by walls. Residents were trained to flee to hiding places at the first sign of raiders. Scouts watched the approaches and gave warning when strangers appeared. These measures saved many lives, though they also demonstrated the constant state of fear in which people lived. Ordinary Africans, the farmers and fishermen and craftspeople who were the targets of slave raids, were victims, not participants. They did not choose the system. They did not benefit from it.

They suffered under it. Any discussion of African complicity must make this distinction clear. The enslaved people shipped to the Americas were not sold by their own families or communities. They were captured by strangers, often from hostile ethnic groups. They were sold by elites who viewed them as outsiders, as enemies, as expendable. The African complicity in the slave trade was the complicity of the powerful against the powerless, of some Africans against other Africans. While Africans provided the captives, Europeans provided the organization, the capital, the ships, and the demand.

The transatlantic slave trade was a commercial enterprise on an unprecedented scale. It required complex logistics, enormous financial investment, and sophisticated international coordination. European governments granted monopoly trading rights to chartered companies. The Portuguese established the first such enterprises. The Dutch West India Company, founded in 1621, dominated the trade for much of the 17th century. The English Royal African Company, chartered in 1660, gave British merchants a foothold in the trade. These companies operated like modern corporations, with shareholders, boards of directors, and professional management. They raised capital from investors, built fleets of ships, constructed trading posts,

and employed thousands of people. The slave trade was not a disorganized criminal enterprise. It was big business, conducted with all the efficiency and ruthlessness that implies. When these monopolies were eventually broken, the slave trade became even more extensive. Private traders, known as interlopers, entered the market. Competition drove down. prices and increased volume. By the 18th century, the transatlantic slave trade was at its peak, with an estimated 6 million Africans transported to the Americas during that century alone. The triangular trade, as it came to be called, was an elegant economic system from the perspective of the traders. Ships left European ports loaded with trade goods, including textiles, firearms,

iron bars, copper, alcohol, and various manufactured items. These goods were exchanged in Africa for enslaved people. The enslaved were transported to the Americas and sold. The proceeds were used to purchase sugar, tobacco, cotton, and other colonial products, which were then shipped back to Europe for sale. Each leg of the triangle generated profit. Each transaction added value. The system was designed to extract maximum wealth at every stage,

and at the center of it all, providing the engine that made everything else possible, were enslaved human beings. European ports grew wealthy on the slave trade. Liverpool became Britain's primary slave trading port, with thousands of voyages departing for Africa over the course of the 18th century. Nantes in France, Lisbon and Portugal, and Amsterdam and the Netherlands were other major slave trading centers.

The wealth generated by the slave trade transformed these cities. Grand buildings were constructed. Banks and insurance companies flourished. A new merchant class rose to prominence. The beautiful architecture that tourists admire today in Liverpool, Bristol, and Nantes, was built in large part, with profits extracted from the bodies of enslaved Africans. The profits from the slave trade rippled through the European economy. Banks that financed slaving voyages grew into major financial institutions.

Insurance companies that covered the risk of lost cargoes expanded. Shipbuilders who constructed slave ships, employed thousands of workers. Manufacturers who produced the goods traded for slaves thrived. Some historians argue that the slave trade provided the capital accumulation that made the industrial revolution possible. Others dispute this claim, arguing that slave trade profits were a small fraction of overall European investment.

Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. The debate continues. but there is no question that the trade generated enormous wealth and that this wealth was invested in ways that shaped European economic development. European coastal forts, known as factories, dotted the West African coast. The most famous of these was Elmina Castle in modern-day Ghana,

originally built by the Portuguese in 1482 and later captured by the Dutch. These forts served as trading posts, storage facilities, and holding pens for captives awaiting. transport. Beneath Elmina Castle were dungeons where hundreds of captives could be held at a time. They were kept in near total darkness, with minimal food and water, until ships arrived to take them away. A door at the base of the castle known today as the door of no return led directly to the waiting boats. The dungeons at Elmina and other coastal forts were designed to break the spirit of captives before they even boarded the ships. The darkness, the crowding,

The lack of sanitation, the constant fear, all served to demonstrate that resistance was futile and that captives had no control over their own fates. Those who passed through that door never saw Africa again. For those who survived the Middle Passage, a rival in the Americas brought no relief from suffering. The ships typically arrived at major slave trading ports like Kingston and Jamaica, Bridgetown and Barbados, Charleston and South Carolina, Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, or Havana in Cuba. The approach of a slave ship was an event in these cities,

drawing merchants, plantation owners, and curious spectators to the docks. Upon reaching port, surviving captives were prepared for sale. They were forced to exercise on deck to restore muscle tone lost during weeks of immobility. They were washed, shaved, and sometimes oiled to make their skin appear healthier. Sores and wounds were concealed with tar or other substances. gray hair might be dyed to make older captives appear younger and more valuable. These preparations were entirely about maximizing sale price. Sick people were made to appear healthy.

Old people were made to appear young. The deceptions were well known to buyers who inspected captives carefully, looking for signs of hidden illness or injury. But the preparations continued because they sometimes worked, and even a small increase in sale price made them worthwhile. Then came the sale itself. Auctions were common, with captives displayed on platforms while buyers examined them like livestock. The humiliation was deliberate and complete.

Families that had managed to stay together through capture and the Middle Passage were routinely separated, never to see each other again. Another common method of sale was called the Scramble. All the captives were placed in a yard or warehouse. At a signal, buyers rushed in and grabbed whoever they'd, could. The chaos was terrifying. People screamed and cried. They clung to family members only to be torn apart. The scramble reduced human beings to objects to be seized by the fastest or strongest buyer. Olada Equiano, if his account is accurate, witnessed a scramble when he arrived in Barbados. He described the noise and clamor, the eagerness of the buyers, and the looks of terror on

the faces of the captives. He wrote that the scramble increased the apprehension, of the terrified Africans who thought they had got into a land of spirits and were going to be eaten by these ugly men. Newly purchased captives then faced a period known as seasoning. This was a brutal process designed to break their spirits and adapt them to their new lives as slaves. It involved hard labor, strict discipline, minimal food, and frequent violence. Seasoning typically lasted about three years, though the term is somewhat misleading. It was not a formal program but rather the period during which newly arrived Africans either adapted to plantation life or died trying. Many chose the latter.

Suicide, self-starvation, and dangerous escape attempts were common among the newly enslaved. The mortality rate during seasoning was high. Some historians estimate that one quarter to one-third of newly arrived Africans died within the first few years. They died of disease, exhaustion, malnutrition, and abuse. They died of broken hearts. Those who survived seasoning faced a lifetime of bondage. The specific conditions varied by time, place, and individual circumstances, but certain patterns were common. Work dominated enslaved people's lives.

On sugar plantations, work days during harvest could stretch to 18 hours or more. Cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations were somewhat less brutal, but still demanded grueling labor. Enslaved domestic workers had longer hours and closer supervision than field workers, with less physical privacy. The work varied by crop and by region. Sugar plantations were the deadliest, with their combination of hard labor, dangerous machinery, and tropical disease. Cotton plantations, particularly in the American South, were somewhat less lethal, but imposed their own brutal rhythms. The picking season demanded long hours in the hot sun, and quotas were in four. with the whip. Violence was ever present. Whipping was the most common form of punishment,

but creative cruelty knew no bounds. Inslave people could be branded, mutilated, or killed for real or imagined offenses. Sexual violence against enslaved women was endemic. Their bodies were treated as property to be used by owners and overseers as they saw fit. The law provided little protection. In most slave societies, killing an enslaved person was technically illegal, but prosecutions were rare, and convictions rarer. The testimony of enslaved people was typically inadmissible against whites. Slaveholders had nearly unlimited power over those they owned. Families provided what comfort they could in this brutal world, but even these bonds were subject to the whims of slaveholders. Families could be and frequently were separated through sale.

a husband might be sold to a buyer in another state a mother might watch her children led away in chains these separations were one of slavery's cruelest aspects enslaved people resisted in countless ways they worked slowly when they could they broke tools they feigned illness they ran away some successfully reaching freedom many others caught and punished they maintained their cultural traditions their music their practices, their sense of humanity in the face of a system designed to deny it, and sometimes they rebelled. The Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 and resulted in the establishment of the first Black Republic in the Western Hemisphere, was the most successful slave rebellion in history. It terrified slaveholders throughout the Americas and demonstrated that enslaved people were capable of organized, sustained resistance. The Haitian Revolution killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed the most profitable colony in the Caribbean. It inspired fear in slaveholders and hope in the enslaved. Its success proved that the system of slavery, however powerful it

seemed, was not invincible. Let us return to the numbers because the scale of this crime is difficult to comprehend. 12.5 million Africans loaded onto slave ships. 10.7 million survived the middle passage. An estimated one to two additional deaths for every person who reached the coast. At least one quarter of new arrivals dead within the first few years of seasoning. When you add it all up, the transatlantic slave trade likely cost Africa somewhere between 20 and 30 million people over four centuries. And these were not random people. Slave traders sought out the young and the healthy, those in the prime of their productive and reproductive years.

Africa lost precisely the people it could least afford to lose. To put these numbers in perspective, consider that the entire population of England in 1500 was only about 3 million people. The slave trade removed the equivalent of multiple European nations from the African continent. No other event in human history involved the forced relocation of so many people across such distances. The demographic impact on Africa was devastated. Some regions were depopulated. Some societies were destabilized beyond recovery.

The constant warfare and raiding disrupted agriculture, trade, and development. While Europe and the Americas experienced the economic growth of the early modern period, much of Africa was trapped in a cycle of violence and extraction. Historians debate the extent to which the slave trade hindered African development. Some argue that Africa was already on a different developmental trajectory, and that the trade merely redirected existing patterns. Others argue that the trade fundamentally derailed African societies that might otherwise have developed differently.

The debate is unlikely to be resolved definitively, but the scale of the destruction is beyond dispute. The slave trade also reshaped African politics. States that could have developed along different lines became militarized predators. Legitimate commerce was crowded out by the trade in human beings. in human beings. Trust between communities was shattered by the ever-present threat of raids and betrayal.

When the slave trade finally ended in the 19th century, it was replaced by European colonization. The scramble for Africa divided the continent among European powers with no regard for existing political, ethnic, or cultural boundaries. The exploitation continued, just in different forms. In the Americas, the legacy of slavery is everywhere. everywhere. It is in the racial hierarchies that persist centuries after emancipation. It is in the wealth disparities that track back to who owned property and who was property. It is in the cultural contributions of African descendants who transformed music, art, cuisine, language, and every other aspect of New World culture. The question of how to reckon with this legacy remains

unresolved. Debates over reparations, over historical memory, over what is owed and by whom continue. These are not simple questions, and honest people can disagree about the answers. But we cannot have those debates honestly without first confronting the full history. And that history includes the uncomfortable truth that this was not simply a crime committed by white Europeans against black Africans. It was a system in which African elites participated. profited, and sometimes initiated the violence. This does not diminish European responsibility. Europeans created the demand.

Europeans organized the shipping. Europeans built the plantation economies that consumed African lives. Europeans developed the racist ideologies that justified the trade. Europeans and their descendants in the Americas reaped the greatest benefits. But acknowledging African complicity is essential to understanding how the trade functioned and why it was so devastating. It is also essential to respecting Africans as historical actors rather than passive victims. African kings and merchants made choices. Some of those choices were horrifically wrong. Recognizing this does not blame all Africans

anymore than recognizing European crimes blames all Europeans. Before we conclude, there are some lesser-known aspects of this history that deserve attention. The The RO Confederacy in what is now southeastern Nigeria operated one of the most sophisticated slave trading networks in Africa. The RO were a trading people who established a vast network of settlements and trading posts throughout the region. They used their control of the oracle at Arachukwu, a religious site considered sacred by many neighboring peoples, to facilitate the slave trade.

People who came to the Oracle seeking judgments and disputes or spiritual guidance might be declared guilty and handed over to the RO as slaves. The religious authority of the Oracle lent legitimacy to what was essentially a slave gathering operation. The RO then transported these captives through their network to coastal markets where they were sold to European traders. The Oracle system was particularly insidious because it clothed the slave trade in religious garb. People came voluntarily seeking spiritual guidance or justice. They trusted the Oracle. and that trust was betrayed. The manipulation of religious belief for profit

is one of the darker aspects of African participation in the slave trade. The RO network extended for hundreds of miles into the interior. They maintained trading relationships with numerous communities. They spoke multiple languages and understood the political dynamics of the region.

Their organization allowed them to move captives efficiently from the interior to the coast, maximizing the number of people they could deliver to European buyers. The Effick people of the Cross River region in Nigeria were another major slave trading group. The Effick controlled the port of Old Calabar, one of the busiest slave trading centers in West Africa.

They developed sophisticated systems for managing the trade, including credit arrangements with European traders and complex negotiations over prices and terms. The ethic were business people in the truest sense. They kept detailed records. They negotiated contracts. They extended credit and collected debts. The same commercial skills that would be valued in any modern trading company

were used in the service of selling human beings. The ethic also practiced a form of human sacrifice associated with the secret society, known as Ekpe. When important ethic chiefs died, slaves were sometimes killed to accompany them in the afterlife. This practice continued even as the external slave trade declined in the 19th. century. In the Kingdom of Dahomey, an annual ceremony called the annual customs involved the sacrifice of war captives and slaves. The numbers are disputed, but some accounts suggest hundreds of people were killed each year. The skulls of victims were used to decorate the

royal palace. European visitors recorded these ceremonies with horror, though it should be noted that Europeans were simultaneously engaged in the far larger scale killing of the slave trade. The documented cruelties of African kingdoms do not diminish European responsibility, but they do complicate any narrative that portrays Africans solely as victims. The annual customs of Dahomey served multiple purposes. They demonstrated the king's power. They honored deceased royalty. They disposed of captives who could not be sold.

And they terrorized neighboring peoples, reminding them of the consequences of resistance. The ceremonies were political things. theater as much as religious ritual. Some historians have documented the role of African women in the slave trade. In certain coastal communities, women known as Signars in Senegal and Gambia and Naras and Guinea-Bassau served as intermediaries between African and European traders. These women often had relationships with European men and used their position to accumulate wealth and influence.

They were slave traders in their own right, owning enslaved people and participating in in the commerce that shipped millions to the Americas. Their existence challenges assumptions about both race and gender in the slave trade. These women occupied a unique position in colonial society. They understood both African and European cultures. They could navigate both worlds. Some became quite wealthy, owning multiple properties and large numbers of enslaved workers.

Their children, of mixed African and European ancestry, sometimes inherited their wealth and continued their wealth wealth and continued their trading activities. The slave trade had lasting effects on African gender ratios. Because European traders preferred male captives for plantation labor, more men than women were exported. This left some African regions with skewed gender ratios and affected marriage patterns, family structures, and social organization for generations. In some areas, the shortage of men led to increased polygyny, as remaining men took multiple wives. It affected agricultural practices, as tasks traditionally performed by men had to be taken over by women.

It disrupted military organization and political structures that depended on male participation. The demographic impact of the slave trade extended far beyond the people who were actually enslaved. Some African societies adapted to the slave trade by becoming more insular and defensive. The Bole people of what is now Cote d'Ivoire known in English as Ivory Coast, retreated into the interior forest and developed social structures specifically designed to resist slave rating. Their experience shows that Africans responded to the slave trade in diverse ways, not all of which involved participation.

The firearms traded for slaves transformed African warfare. Traditional weapons like spears and bows were replaced by muskets and eventually by more modern rifles. This militarization increased the deadliness of conflicts and made resistance to slave raids more difficult for communities that lacked access to guns. The gun slave cycle, as some historians call it, became self-perpetuating. Guns were needed for security. Guns could only be obtained through trade.

The most valuable trade good was slaves. Therefore, slaves had to be obtained to buy guns. And guns made it easier to obtain slaves. The cycle drove ever-increasing levels of violence and enslavement. Alcohol was another major trade good. European traders brought rum, brandy, and other spirits to Africa in enormous quantities. Some historians argue that the introduction of distilled spirits contributed to social problems in African communities, though this remains a subject of scholarly debate.

What is clear is that alcohol became deeply embedded in the trading relationship. It was used to lubricate negotiations, to seal deals, and sometimes to income. incapacitate potential victims. Some accounts suggest that people were kidnapped while drunk. Their judgment impaired by alcohol provided by the very traders who would sell them. The slave trade also involved a peculiar form of human trafficking called pan-yarring, which was essentially legalized kidnapping. If an African trader failed to fulfill a contract with a European buyer, the European could seize any African he could catch as compensation. This created additional insecurity in coastal communities

and gave Europeans a form of leverage over their trading partners. Panyaring meant that anyone could become a victim, regardless of their status or connections. A failed business deal could result in innocent people being seized and shipped to the Americas. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. The practice undermined any sense of security, and demonstrated the arbitrary cruelty of the system.

European traders also sometimes kidnapped Africans directly, particularly in the early years of the trade. These activities were technically illegal under most European trading company rules, but they occurred nonetheless. The line between legitimate trade and simple piracy was often blurred. The psychological impact of the slave trade on African societies is difficult to measure, but was certainly significant.

people lived in constant fear of raids and kidnapping. Trust between communities broke down. Suspicion and conflict became endemic. The social fabric of entire regions was torn apart by centuries of predation. The transatlantic slave trade did not end because slaveholders had a change of heart. It ended because of sustained pressure from abolitionists, resistance from enslaved people, and changing economic calculations. For most of its history, the slave. slave trade faced little organized opposition. It was accepted as a normal part of economic life,

sanctioned by church and state, defended by philosophers and economists. Those who questioned it were voices in the wilderness. The abolitionist movement began in earnest in the late 18th century. In Britain, activists like Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and William Wilberforce campaigned for decades to end British participation in the slave trade. They collected evidence of the trade's cruelties, built public support through pamphlets and petitions, and lobbied parliament relentlessly. Thomas Clarkson deserves particular mention. He devoted his life to documenting the horrors of the slave trade. He traveled to Liverpool and other slave trading ports, interviewing sailors, collecting testimony, and gathering physical evidence. He obtained the shackles,

chains, thumb screws, and other instruments of torture used on slave ships. He displayed these objects at public meetings, making the abstract horror of the trade concrete and visible. Clarkson's work was dangerous. The slave trade was enormously profitable, and those who profited from it did not welcome his investigations. He was threatened and attacked. He suffered from exhaustion and nervous breakdowns. But he persisted for decades, compiling the evidence that would eventually convince Parliament to act. Formerly enslaved people played crucial roles in the abolitionist movement. Olauda Equiano's autobiography, published in 1789, gave British readers a first-hand account of capture, the middle passage, and enslavement. It became a bestseller and helped

turn public opinion against the trade. Equiano toured Britain promoting his book and speaking against the slave trade. He was articulate, educated, and clearly intelligent, directly refuting the racist claims that Africans were inherently inferior. His very existence challenged the ideology that justified slavery. Other formerly enslaved people contributed to the movement in various ways. Adabacoguano published thoughts and sentiments on the evil of slavery in 1787. Ignatius Sancho's letters, published posthumously, provided another perspective on the black experience in Britain. These voices gave the abolitionist movement and authenticity and moral authority. that white abolitionists alone could not provide.

The Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791, demonstrated that enslaved people could and would fight for their freedom. The successful uprising of enslaved Africans against their French masters terrified slaveholders throughout the Americas. It also inspired abolitionists and provided proof that slavery was not a stable or sustainable system. In 1807, Britain abolished the slave trade. British ships could no longer legally transport enslaved Africans. In 1808, the United States also banned the importation of slaves,

though this ban was not always effectively enforced. Britain then took the unusual step of using its naval power to suppress the slave trade by other nations. The Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron patrolled the African coast, intercepting slave ships and freeing their human cargo. Over the course of the 19th century, the squadron freed approximately 150,000 Africans. The squadron's work was dangerous and often deadly.

Service on the West African coast meant exposure to malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases. The death rate among sailors in the squadron was extremely high. Some years, more British sailors died patrolling the African coast than Africans were freed from intercepted slave ships. Britain also used diplomatic pressure to convince other nations to abolish their slave trades. Treaties were negotiated that allowed the Royal Navy to stop

and search ships of other nations suspected of carrying slaves. Financial compensation was paid to some nations to give up the trade. The British invested significant resources in ending a commerce that had made them enormously wealthy. Why did Britain turn against the slave trade? The motivations were complex. Genuine moral conviction played a role as evangelical Christianity spread

and the idea that all people were equal before God gained strength. Economic changes also mattered as some historians argue that free labor became more profitable than slave labor in an industrializing economy. Geopolitical considerations were relevant too as suppressing the slave trade

gave Britain moral authority and excuses to interfere with the shipping of rival nations. But abolition of the trade did not mean abolition of slave. slavery. Slavery itself continued in the British Caribbean until 1834, in the French Caribbean, until 1848, in the United States until 1865, and in Brazil until 1888. The United States experienced the bloodiest conflict in its history, the Civil War, largely over the question of slavery. More than 600,000 people died before slavery was finally ended. Even then, the promise of

emancipation was undermined by decades of Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, and other systems that kept black Americans in conditions barely distinguishable from bondage. In Africa, the end of the external slave trade did not end slavery. Internal slavery and slave trading continued for decades. The colonial powers that divided Africa in the late 19th century eventually abolished slavery in their territories, but often only gradually and with many exceptions. Some for forms of unfree labor persisted well into the 20th century. Forced labor systems in colonial Africa, while not technically slavery, shared many of its characteristics. The exploitation of African labor continued, just under different legal frameworks.

The legacy of slavery and the slave trade continued to shape the world long after abolition. Racial hierarchies established during the slave era persisted. Economic inequalities that originated in the plunder of Africa and the exploitation of African labor remained. The psychological wounds of centuries of dehumanization did not heal overnight. The transatlantic slave trade was one of the greatest crimes in human history. It reshaped continents, built fortunes, destroyed millions of lives, and created legacies that persist to this day.

The scale of the crime is almost impossible to comprehend. If we count not just those who crossed the Atlantic, but also those who died and capture raids, on forced marches, in coastal barracoons, and during the Middle Passage, we are talking about tens of millions of lives lost or destroyed. Entire regions were depopulated. Entire cultures were disrupted. The trajectory of African development was fundamentally altered. The moral responsibility for this crime is not evenly distributed. Europeans created the demand, organized the shipping, built the plantation economies, and reaped the greatest profits. They developed racist ideologies to justify their actions and pass those

ideologies down through generations. The primary responsibility rests with them. But the crime could not have occurred on the scale it did without African participation. African kings, merchants, and warriors captured, transported, and sold millions of their fellow Africans. They did so for reasons that made sense to them at the time, including economic gain, political advantage and simple survival in a brutal world. But they participated in a horror. Some will ask why it matters to acknowledge African complicity. The answer is that history matters. The full truth matters. We cannot understand how this crime happened, how it was sustained for four centuries, how it touched every corner of the Atlantic world, without understanding all the parties who made it

possible. Understanding this does not diminish the evil of European slaveholders or the suffering of enslaved people. It does not provide ammunition for those who would minimize the crime or deny its ongoing consequences. What it does is present history in its full complexity with all its uncomfortable truths. Human beings are capable of extraordinary evil. They are capable of participating in systems that destroy millions of lives. They are capable of justifying these actions through ideology, religion, economics, or simple greed. This capacity for evil is not limited to any race, nation, or continent. It is a human trait. The transatlantic slave trade demonstrates this truth in the starkest possible terms. It was a crime

committed by humans against humans, with complicity spread across multiple continents. Acknowledging this is not about assigning blame equally. It is about seeing the full picture. Some may ask whether discussing African complicity lets Europeans off the hook. The answer is emphatically no. Europeans created the system. They provided the demand that made the trade profitable. They developed the racist ideology that justified the trade. They built the plantation economies that consumed African lives. Without European demand, there would have been no transatlantic slave trade. But without African participation, The trade could not have operated as it did.

Europeans could not penetrate the interior. They could not capture millions of people on their own. They relied on African partners, African networks, African warfare. Understanding this partnership is essential to understanding the trade. Only by confronting the full truth can we begin to understand how such horrors occur and how we might prevent them in the future. Only by seeing the complexity can we resist the easy narratives that divide the world into innocent victims and guilty perpetrators.

Only by acknowledging our shared capacity for evil, can we work toward a future in which such evil is less likely to occur. The lessons of the slave trade remain relevant today. Human trafficking continues to plague the world. Forced labor persists in many forms. Economic systems still exploit vulnerable people for the benefit of the powerful. The capacity for evil that made the slave, trade possible has not disappeared from the human heart. By studying this history honestly,

with all its uncomfortable truths, we honor the memory of those who suffered. We acknowledge their humanity. We refuse to allow their experiences to be simplified or sanitized. And we commit ourselves to building a world where such horrors can never happen again. The millions who suffered and died in the slave trade deserve nothing less than the full truth. Their memory demands it. History requires it, and our own humanity depends upon our willingness to face it. Watch out. I'm coming for you. Ooh, you better run now. Ooh, the moon is out now.

Ooh, you're gonna hear my how. Blood skies Red eyes Can't give enough for me My dream is your nightmare You'll see me Coming for you I'm coming for you

Ooh Ooh, the room is out now. Ooh, you're gonna hear my heart. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. You better run now. Ooh, for the morning is out now. Ooh, you're gonna hear my hell. Oh, oh. Oh. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.