The Cambridge World History of Slavery

This chapter explains why one major region of the Atlantic world, Western Africa, was left behind in the development of markets and the market economy during late nineteenth century. It demonstrates that the peculiar characteristics of the trade in captives, exported for enslavement in the Americas, explain the stagnation of market development in Western Africa between 1650 and 1850. The chapter presents evidence showing the growth and direction of interregional and intercontinental trade in West Africa in the centuries preceding the growth of the transatlantic slave trade. It focuses on secular changes in the commodity composition of European imports into West Africa to show the adverse impact of the slave trade on the preceding ongoing commercializing process. It is clear from the combination of import statistics and other evidence that the transatlantic slave trade seriously retarded the development of markets and the market economy in West Africa over the period 1650-1850.