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Content: In most situations, men as well as
        women captured in local warfare became slaves. In general, however,
        slaves in African communities were often treated as junior members of
        the society with specific rights, and many were ultimately absorbed into
        their masters' families as full members. Given traditional methods of
        agricultural production in Africa, slavery in Africa was quite different
        from that which existed in the commercial plantation environments of the
        New World. Another aspect of the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on
        Africa concerns the role of African chiefs, Muslim traders, and merchant
        princes in the trade. Although there is no doubt that local rulers in
        West Africa engaged in slaving and received certain advantages from it,
        some scholars have challenged the premise that traditional chiefs in the
        vicinity of the Gold Coast engaged in wars of expansion for the sole
        purpose of acquiring slaves for the export market. In the case of
        Asante, for example, rulers of that kingdom are known to have supplied
        slaves to both Muslim traders in the north and to Europeans on the
        coast. Even so, the Asante waged war for purposes other than simply to
        secure slaves. They also fought to pacify territories that in theory
        were under Asante control, to exact tribute payments from subordinate
        kingdoms, and to secure access to trade routes--particularly those that
        connected the interior with the coast. It is important to mention, however, that the supply of slaves to the
        Gold Coast was entirely in African hands. Although powerful traditional
        chiefs, such as the rulers of Asante, Fante, and Ahanta, were known to
        have engaged in the slave trade, individual African merchants such as
        John Kabes, John Konny, Thomas Ewusi, and a broker known only as Noi
        commanded large bands of armed men, many of them slaves, and engaged in
        various forms of commercial activities with the Europeans on the coast.