The roles of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade

Extract

[...] Therefore, Rawley and Behrendt posit that the concomitant result of the abolition of the slave trade was the proliferation of domestic slavery as a result of African businessmen replacing trade in human chattel with increased export of primary commodities as labor was required to create new wealth for the African elite (2005). Quite controversially, African writer Obadina suggests that the long history of corruption in the African ruling class suggests that Europe not decided to end the slave trade and the New World ceased demanding chattel labor, the transatlantic trade might still be rolling today. The ending of the obnoxious business had nothing to do with events in Africa” (Obadina 2000). [...]

[...] If we firstly consider the historical evidence regarding African participation in the slave trade; leading contemporary African economist journalist Obadina refers to the early writings of Portuguese explorer Duatre Pacheco Pereire that the African rulers and the military aristocracy's wealth continued to grow exponentially as a result of the slave trade to European traders (2000). In reiterating this point, Obadina argues that the African Kingdom of Benin was “usually at war with its neighbors and takes many captives, whom we buy at twelve or fifteen brass bracelets each or for copper bracelets, which they prize more” (2000). [...]

[...] Therefore, Obadina's arguments go beyond a consideration and acknowledgement of the role of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade and suggest that the very nature of the African hierarchical political framework meant that the African ruling class had no desire or incentive to cease the slave trade (2000). Obadina utilizes this argument to imply an argument for innate corruption amongst the African ruling classes to suggest a correlation between their role in the transatlantic slave trade and contemporary problems of corruption in Africa (2000). [...]

[...] Moreover, the controversy over the role of Africans as suppliers in the slave trade has propagated numerous flawed assumptions and it is submitted that the causal factors in why Africans participated in the slave trade of their fellow countrymen cannot be explained by one theory and encompasses an interrelationship of numerous complex factors. Nevertheless, it is submitted that the role and power of Europeans in colonizing Africa and the building the Americas on the back of the slave trade clearly highlights that the participation of African suppliers was by no means an equal partnership and points to an underlying desire for economic [...]

[...] Nevertheless, whilst acknowledging the role of Africans as suppliers in the transatlantic slave trade, Bailey's arguments undermine Obadina's dogmatic assertion of an African ruling class predisposed to enslaving their fellow country men. Indeed, in denouncing such an argument Bailey denies any notion of an equal partnership between African rulers and Europeans on grounds that simply fact also that no European was ever enslaved on a plantation in the Americas” (2005, p.59). Therefore, ultimately, the degree of and extent of the African rationale for participating in the transatlantic slave trend depended on the era and nature of the trade as many African rulers were in precarious positions vis- à-vis the more powerful European traders (Bailey p.59). [...]