Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===African awareness of the conditions of slavery in the Americas===
[[File:FORBES(1851) p1.133 SCENE AT SLAVE MARKET.jpg|thumb|A slave market in Dahomey]]

It is difficult to reconstruct and generalize how Africans residing in Africa understood the Atlantic slave trade, though there is evidence for some societies that African elites and slave traders had awareness of the conditions of the slaves who were transported to the Americas.<ref name="law">{{cite book |last1=Law |first1=Robin |title=Ouidah: the social history of a West African slaving 'port', 1727–1892 |date=2004 |publisher=Ohio University Press |location=Athens, Ohio |isbn=978-0-8214-1572-6 |pages=148–149}}</ref>{{sfn|Sparks|2014|p=243}} According to Robin Law, the royal elites of the kingdom of [[Dahomey]] must have had an "informed understanding" of the fates of the Africans they sold into slavery.<ref name="law"/> Dahomey sent diplomats to Brazil and Portugal who returned with information about their trips.<ref name="law"/> In addition, a few royal elites of Dahomey had experienced slavery for themselves in the Americas before returning to their homeland.<ref name="law"/> The only apparent moral issue that the kingdom had with slavery was the enslavement of fellow Dahomeyans, an offense punishable by death, rather than the institution of slavery itself.<ref name="law"/>

On the Gold Coast, it was common for slave-trading African rulers to encourage their children to learn about Europeans by sending them to sail on European ships, live inside European forts, or travel to Europe or America for an education.{{sfn|Sparks|2014|pp=186–197}} Diplomats also traveled to European capital cities. The elites even rescued fellow elites who were tricked into slavery in the Americas by sending demands to the Dutch and the British governments, who complied due to fears of reduced trade and physical harm to hostages.{{sfn|Sparks|2014|pp=186–197}} An example is the case of [[William Ansah Sessarakoo]], who was rescued from slavery in Barbados after being recognised by a visiting slave trader of the same Fante ethnic group, and later became a slave trader himself.<ref>{{cite web |title=William Ansah Sessarakoo, Slave Trader born |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/william-ansah-sessarakoo-merchant-born/ |website=African American Registry |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230712111920/https://aaregistry.org/story/william-ansah-sessarakoo-merchant-born/ |archive-date=12 July 2023}}</ref>

[[Fenda Lawrence]] was a slave trader from [[the Gambia]] who lived and traded in [[Georgia (U.S. State)|Georgia]] and [[South Carolina]] as a free person.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Akyeampong |first1=Emmanuel Kwaku |last2=Gates |first2=Henry Louis Jr. |title=Dictionary of African Biography |date=2012 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-538207-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39JMAgAAQBAJ&q=Fenda+Lawrence&pg=RA2-PA475 |access-date=10 August 2022 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726160701/https://books.google.com/books?id=39JMAgAAQBAJ&q=Fenda+Lawrence&pg=RA2-PA475#v=snippet&q=Fenda%20Lawrence&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref>

A common assumption by Africans who were unaware of the true purpose of the Atlantic slave trade was that the Europeans were cannibals who planned on cooking and eating their captives.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=316}} This rumour was a common source of significant distress for enslaved Africans.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=316}}