Natural Experiments of History by Unknown

Natural Experiments of History by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00


5

Shackled to the Past: The Causes and Consequences of Africa’s Slave Trades

NATHAN NUNN

Africa’s history is intimately connected with slavery. The continent has experienced four large slave trades, all of which date back at least to the mid-fifteenth century. The oldest of the slave trades, the trans-Saharan, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean slave trades, all date back to at least A.D. 800. During these trades, slaves were taken from land south of the Saharan desert, inland of the Red Sea, and inland of the coast of Eastern Africa, and were shipped to Northern Africa and the Middle East. The largest and most studied of the slave trades is the trans-Atlantic slave trade, where beginning in the fifteenth century, slaves were shipped from West Africa, West Central Africa, and Eastern Africa to the European colonies in the New World. Although the trans-Atlantic slave trade was the shortest in duration, it was the largest and most penetrating of the four. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, upwards of 12 million slaves were taken from the continent of Africa. The total number of slaves shipped during this same time period in the other three slave trades is somewhere around 6 million. In total, nearly 18 million slaves were shipped in the four slave trades over this 400-year period.1

Given the sheer magnitude of the slave trades, it is natural to ask what effect, if any, they had on African societies. This is an old and much debated question in the African history literature. A number of authors, dating back to at least the writings of Basil Davidson and Walter Rodney, argue that the slave trades had a significant adverse impact on the political, social, and economic development of Africa.2 For example, in his book Slavery and African Life, Patrick Manning argues that “slavery was corruption: it involved theft, bribery, and exercise of brute force as well as ruses. Slavery thus may be seen as one source of precolonial origins for modern corruption.”3 Along similar lines, Joseph Inikori argues that the long-term consequence of Africa’s slave trades was to “alter the direction of the economic process in Africa away from development and towards underdevelopment and dependence.” 4

Recent research has examined the impact of the slave trades on specific ethnic groups. These studies have begun to uncover and document the detrimental effects of the slave trades on the institutional and social structures of African societies. They show how the external demand for slaves caused political instability, weakened states, promoted political and social fragmentation, and resulted in a deterioration of domestic legal institutions.5

The view of others, such as John Fage and David Northrup, is that the slave trades had little effect on the subsequent socioeconomic development of Africa.6 David Northrup, examining the effects of the slave trade in southeastern Nigeria, concludes that “while it is true that the slave trade was cruel and produced a climate of fear and suspicion, its social and economic effects which can be measured were surprisingly benign.”7 These differences in opinion are not surprising.



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