Impact of Slave Trade on Africa

Rebecca Graf
Renaissance Men and Women
2 min readSep 17, 2024

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By KuroNekoNiyah — Own work based on Map 1, from Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven, 2010), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99922201

The slave trade drastically changed two hemispheres. It was not just regulated to the southern section of the British colonies. It was not regulated to any one continent.

We mostly think of slavery in America’s Southern colonies and states. It was not limited to Southern area of the United States. Slavery was found the world over.

Assumptions

Many thought that the population of Africa was severely depleted due to the slave trade was has been estimated to have been at 100,000 a year for three hundred years. It was also assumed that European demand for labor caused African tribes to fight each other to obtain this labor and increase their own wealth. Many assumptions can be correct though they can be viewed through different perspectives.

Heavy Research

It takes research into the history of a culture to see what really happened and how the deep the impact was. Research has showed that the European demand for human bodies played a part in the increase of warfare by offering tribes items that made “warfare more profitable, at least in the short term.”(1) War was not uncommon, but now there was an added incentive. That changed the political landscape of Africa as tribes began to totally wipe out other tribes instead of pushing until they received the desired tribute…

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Rebecca Graf
Renaissance Men and Women

Writer for ten years, lover of education, and degrees in business, history, and English. Striving to become a Renassiance woman. www.writerrebeccagraf.com