How was the continent of Africa enslaved from the 15th to 19th century? Was it because the technology of the Europeans was that much better for them to be able to do that?

Question

How was the continent of Africa enslaved from the 15th to 19th century? Was it because the technology of the Europeans was that much better for them to be able to do that?

In: 1

Answer 1

Chinese discovered how to pew pew with guns.

Europeans copied it. Then Europeans decided to keep killing eachother as usual. And as usual, war promotes weapon innovation. The entire Europe is surrounded by sea, so they also brought the pew pew to the sea. After 3 centuries of pew pew, they got pretty good at it.

Then the pew pew people decided to take control of the money, which was made by controlling the trade. Europeans started grabbing any land on the silk way, then tried a sea route to India and China, then tried to go around the world for a shortcut. They got filth rich and this allowed to purchase or make a lot more pew pew items.

At that point, European countries could show up in any point of the globe with a gigantic amount of cannons and guns that were 2-3 centuries more evolved than any pew pew in the rest of the world, and even more advanced compared to sword and shield of non pew pew people.

So yes, they were really advanced. The luck was to be in war non stop at the beginning of pew pew era. That gave ‘em a superb starting point just when sea exploration became possible. And sea exploration was possible because pew pew ships needed to be strong, so they had an enormous shipbuilding advantage too. You need a lot of food supply to cross the sea so only big strong ships could do it.

Just imagine a 74 gun ship of the line having to fight war canoes… pretty unfair.

Last, In case Europeans can’t conquer a land, Europeans can simply sit out of the coast and starve the land people from any commerce, until they give up and start pay tribute.

It continued down the line. To make a lot of cannons you need foundries. To do foundries you need ore. Then Europeans started streamlining and standardizing the manufacture and mining. It sparked the industrial Revolution. At that point the pew pew people were running around the globe with infinite money and ironclad warships. At this point the pew pew people were armored against any cannon shorter than 6 meters and less than 100 tons, can shoot lui from kilometers away and can run around at 20 knots vs 12 if a sail ship.

For some colonies, it was like the movie “Independence Day”, that was the tech gap.

Now the gap is 100 times narrower. But it used to be crazy.