Title: African Participation and Resistance to the Trade · African Passages, Lowcountry Adaptations · Lowcountry Digital History Initiative
Headings: African Participation and Resistance to the Trade
African Participation and Resistance to the Trade
Content: Manillas from Nigeria, commonly used as currency in West Africa during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, particularly by European traders on the coast purchasing enslaved people from African traders. As noted earlier, though ethnic identities were influential, these groups did not share a common African or black identity. Instead, they saw cultural and ethnic differences (such as Igbo , Ashanti , Mende, and Fulani) as social divisions. Frequent conflicts between these groups produced captives who could then circulate in the local slave trade system, and eventually the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Europeans also went to great lengths to influence African traders and leaders to provide enslaved Africans for the trans-Atlantic trade. European traders encouraged African consumer demands for European goods, formed military alliances to instigate fighting and increase the number of captives, and shifted the location of disembarkation points for the trade along the West and Central African coast to follow African military conflicts. In areas of West and Central Africa where slavery was not prevalent, European demand often expanded the presence of the institution and trade. But European traders still generally worked within terms set by African rulers and traders, who negotiated their own interests in these trading and military alliances. " Door of No Return " memorial at The House of Slaves, Gorée, Senegal, image taken 2004. For example, when the profits of the slave trade did not outweigh the loss of local labor caused by the trans-Atlantic trade, African leaders could refuse to supply European demands.