Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===European participation in the slave trade===
Europeans provided the market for slaves, rarely traveling beyond the coast or entering the African interior, due to fear of [[Tropical disease|disease]] and native resistance.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24159 |title=Historical survey > The international slave trade. |website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302231358/http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24159 |archive-date=2 March 2012}}</ref> They typically resided in fortresses on the coasts, where they waited for Africans to provide them captured slaves from the interior in exchange for goods. Cases of European merchants kidnapping free Africans into slavery often resulted in fierce retaliation from Africans, who could momentarily stop trade and even capture or kill Europeans.{{sfn|Sparks|2014|p=46}} Europeans who desired safe and uninterrupted trade aimed to prevent kidnapping incidents, and the British passed the "Acts of Parliament for Regulating the Slave Trade" in 1750 which outlawed the abduction of free Africans by "fraud, force, or violence".{{sfn|Sparks|2014|p=46}} According to a source from the Lowcountry Digital Library at the [[College of Charleston]], "When Portuguese, and later their European competitors, found that peaceful commercial relations alone did not generate enough enslaved Africans to fill the growing demands of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, they formed military alliances with certain African groups against their enemies. This encouraged more extensive warfare to produce captives for trading."<ref>{{cite web |title=The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade |url=https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/trans_atlantic_slave_trade |website=Lowcountry Digitial History Initiative |publisher=Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston |access-date=12 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240627115650/https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/trans_atlantic_slave_trade |archive-date=27 June 2024}}</ref>

[[File:The inspection and sale of a slave.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|A slave being inspected]]

In 1778, [[Thomas Kitchin]] estimated that Europeans were bringing an estimated 52,000 slaves to the Caribbean yearly, with the French bringing the most Africans to the [[French West Indies]] (13,000 out of the yearly estimate).<ref name=Kitchin1>{{cite book |last=Kitchin |first=Thomas |title=The Present State of the West-Indies: Containing an Accurate Description of What Parts Are Possessed by the Several Powers in Europe |year=1778 |publisher=R. Baldwin |location=London |page=21 |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/4397/view/1/21/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240511184618/https://www.loc.gov/item/02008613 |archive-date=11 May 2024}}</ref> The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the last two decades of the 18th century,{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=304}} during and following the [[Kongo Civil War]].{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=305}} Wars among tiny states along the Niger River's [[Igbo people|Igbo]]-inhabited region and the accompanying banditry also spiked in this period.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=310}} Another reason for surplus supply of enslaved people was major warfare conducted by expanding states, such as the [[kingdom of Dahomey]],{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=311}} the [[Oyo Empire]], and the [[Ashanti Empire]].{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=122}}