The trade in people who became enslaved was present on the African continent since the ancient Egyptians. People became slaves in Africa mainly because of wars: members of rival tribes were reduced to the status of captives, that is, slaves. The wars took place between the different African kingdoms and also through the conflicts that took place between the different African ethnic groups. Another way people became slaves was through debt.
In Africa, the slave trade began around the 2nd century BC. C., when Pharaoh Snefru returned from the Nubian region with thousands of prisoners of war who became slaves in Ancient Egypt. Later, Greeks and Romans continued to traffic and enslave Africans who became prisoners of war. It is worth noting that much of North Africa was part of the Roman Empire, and the Greeks dominated for a long time the Mediterranean Sea, which links the European continent with the African continent. As a result, several Africans were enslaved by the Romans and Greeks.
With the Arab conquest in the 12th century, mainly in North Africa, the slave trade and the number of people enslaved in Africa increased. However, the African slave trade increased significantly from the slave trade inaugurated by the Europeans in the context of the European maritime expansion, in the 15th century (Modern Age).
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During the fifteenth century, Europeans, in order to expand their commercial activities, explored the African coast. With the colonization of America, they needed manpower to work in the lands conquered in the “New World”.
Faced with this new reality, Europeans began to practice the lucrative slave trade, which took place for four centuries between the African continent and the American continent. The slave trade brought about transformations in African society, as the increase or decrease of the domestic slavery (in Africa) was related (a) to greater or lesser external demand (for America). Therefore, the greater the need for slaves in America, the greater the number of people enslaved in Africa. Thus, the slave trade became a profitable business.
The contingent of Africans who were forcibly brought to America as slaves is not accurate, but lies between ten and eleven million enslaved Africans, from the 15th century until the abolition of the slave trade in Cuba, in the year 1868. In Brazil, the slave trade was prohibited with the Eusébio de Queiroz Law in 1850, but slavery was only abolished in 1888.
Leandro Carvalho
Master in History
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
OAK, Leandro. "Slave Trade in Africa"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/comercio-escravos-na-Africa.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
