I hope my question doesn’t offend anyone I genuinely want actual facts.
In some parts in Europe people often say that we tricked the Africans by buying their people with things like glass that look valuable but aren’t, but I don’t believe this to be true because it blames the African people and portrays them as stupid etc, so I wondered how it actually happened/started.
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Slavery has existed since humans gained enough intelligence to realize that if they could force someone else to do their work, their life would be easier. All manner of people have been subjected to slavery. Slaves were usually a different class, religion, nationality, or ethnicity. Each culture has had what they considered a “lower level” human that would usually end up either as a slave or simply living in poverty.
The transatlantic slave trade began much earlier than 1619 Jamestown that is written about in American history books. The Portuguese were the first recorded to buy slaves in West Africa in 1526, taking them to Brazil. Many Europeans followed after this. These people were war captives, owed debts, were military slaves, criminals, and used for prostitution. Domestic slaves were fairly common at this time across Africa, with plantation slaves mostly being used on the Eastern coast of Africa and parts of West Africa.
There may have been some shady “oooo look at this shiny glass” deals, but the slave trade was thriving in Africa as a legitimate business practice at the time already. I’m not saying it was a good thing to happen, but most slaves were purchased/ traded in legal markets or auctions. Europeans are wrong for buying them to use as slaves, but the African people were also wrong to be selling their own people for that purpose. This fact is always ignored when American or European slavery of Africans is brought up. Things were pretty fucked up back then, but that was their normal. That’s why pointing fingers to blame any one group isn’t correct because both parties participated. The Atlantic slave trade was abolished in the 19th century in Africa so the economy shifted to using domestic slave labor for plantations, continuing to use their own people for slave labor.
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