Title: Slavery - The international slave trade | Britannica
Headings: The international slave trade
The international slave trade
Content: John Raphael Smith: Slave Trade
Slave Trade, print on paper by John Raphael Smith after George Morland, 1762–1812; in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-1969-83)
Beginning about 1500, a similar process occurred along the coast of West Africa to supply the transatlantic slave trade. The Africans were captured by other Africans in raids and then transported to the coast; one may assume that the number of casualties of African slave raiding was nearly as high as that of Crimean Tatar slave raiding. The captives, primarily adult males, were assembled on the coast by African rulers and kept in holding pens until wholesaled to European ship captains who sailed up and down the coast looking for slave cargo. ( As stated above, the women and children often were not sent to the coast for export but were kept by the Africans themselves, often for incorporation into their lineages.) African rulers, who did not allow the Europeans to move inland, often conducted their wholesale business on the coast, such as at Ouidah in Dahomey (now Benin ). ( Because of the disease climate the Europeans also were reluctant, even unable, to move inland until the mid-19th century.)