Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===African conflicts===
[[File:Slave ship diagram.png|right|thumb|Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.]]
[[File:Thomas-Clarkson-De-kreet-der-Afrikanen MG 1315.tif|thumb|Diagram of a large slave ship. [[Thomas Clarkson]]: ''The cries of Africa to the inhabitants of Europe'', {{Circa|1822}}]]

According to Kimani Nehusi, the presence of European slavers affected the way in which the legal code in African societies responded to offenders. Crimes traditionally punishable by some other form of punishment became punishable by enslavement and sale to slave traders.<ref>{{cite web |title=West Africa |url=https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/west-africa#section--the-capture-and-sale-of-enslaved-africans |website=[[National Museums Liverpool]] |access-date=12 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026080343/https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/west-africa |archive-date=26 October 2020}}</ref><ref name="ldhi"/> According to [[David Stannard]]'s ''American Holocaust'', 50% of African deaths occurred in Africa as a result of wars between native kingdoms, which produced the majority of slaves.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> This includes not only those who died in battles but also those who died as a result of forced marches from inland areas to slave ports on the various coasts.<ref name="Gomez">{{cite book |last=Gomez |first=Michael A. |title=Exchanging Our Country Marks |location=Chapel Hill |year=1998 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |url=https://archive.org/details/exchangingourcou0000gome |url-access=registration |isbn=9780807823873}}{{page needed|date=July 2024}}</ref> The practice of enslaving enemy combatants and their villages was widespread throughout Western and West Central Africa. The slave trade was largely a by-product of tribal and state warfare as a way of removing potential dissidents after victory or financing future wars.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=}}{{page needed|date=July 2024}}

In addition, European nations instigated war between African nations and increased the number of war captives by making alliances with warring nations and shifted trade locations in coastal areas to follow patterns of African military conflicts to acquire more slaves.<ref name="ldhi"/> Some African groups proved particularly adept and brutal at the practice of enslaving, such as [[Bono state|Bono State]], [[Oyo Empire|Oyo]], [[Kingdom of Benin|Benin]], [[Igala people|Igala]], [[Kaabu]], [[Ashanti Empire|Ashanti]], [[Dahomey]], the [[Aro Confederacy]] and the [[Imbangala]] war bands.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Peterson |first1=Derek R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Om12BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA113 |title=The Politics of Heritage in Africa |last2=Gavua |first2=Kodzo |last3=Rassool |first3=Ciraj |date=2 March 2015 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-107-09485-7 |language=en |access-date=13 August 2020 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726160753/https://books.google.com/books?id=Om12BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA113#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stride |first1=G. T. |first2=C. |last2=Ifeka |title=Peoples and Empires of West Africa: West Africa in History 1000–1800 |publisher=Nelson |date=1986}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2024}}

In letters written by the [[Manikongo]], [[Afonso I of Kongo|Nzinga Mbemba Afonso]], to the King [[João III of Portugal]], he writes that Portuguese merchandise flowing in is what is fueling the trade in Africans. He requests the King of Portugal to stop sending merchandise but should only send missionaries. In one of his letters he writes:

{{blockquote|Each day the traders are kidnapping our people—children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family. This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated. We need in this kingdom only priests and schoolteachers, and no merchandise, unless it is wine and flour for Mass. It is our wish that this Kingdom not be a place for the trade or transport of slaves ...

Many of our subjects eagerly lust after Portuguese merchandise that your subjects have brought into our domains. To satisfy this inordinate appetite, they seize many of our black free subjects ... They sell them. After having taken these prisoners [to the coast] secretly or at night ... As soon as the captives are in the hands of white men they are branded with a red-hot iron.<ref name="Adam Hochschild 1998">{{cite book |title=King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa |first=Adam |last=Hochschild |author-link=Adam Hochschild |isbn=0-618-00190-5 |year=1998 |pages=13 |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Books]] |title-link=King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa}}</ref>}}

Before the arrival of the [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]], slavery had already existed in the [[Kingdom of Kongo]]. [[Afonso I of Kongo]] believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally enslaved persons to sell, he wrote to King João III in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.millersville.edu/~winthrop/Thornton.html |title=Winthrop, reading by John Thornton, "African Political Ethics and the Slave Trade" |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100316075617/http://www.millersville.edu/~winthrop/Thornton.html |archive-date=16 March 2010 |website=Millersville College}}</ref>

The kings of [[Dahomey]] sold [[POW|war captives]] into transatlantic slavery; they would otherwise have been killed in a ceremony known as the [[The annual customs of Dahomey|Annual Customs]]. As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.museeouidah.org/Theme-Dahomey.htm |title=Museum Theme: The Kingdom of Dahomey |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001202140/http://www.museeouidah.org/Theme-Dahomey.htm |archive-date=1 October 2018 |website=Musee Ouidah}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-149772/Dahomey |title=Dahomey (historical kingdom, Africa) |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2 June 2022 |archive-date=26 April 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080426204252/http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-149772/Dahomey |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.finalcall.com/national/slave_trade10-08-2002.htm |title=Benin seeks forgiveness for role in slave trade |work=Final Call |date=8 October 2002 |access-date=21 September 2007 |archive-date=14 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181214123944/http://www.finalcall.com/national/slave_trade10-08-2002.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> Like the [[Bambara Empire]] to the east, the [[Khasso]] kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the [[Europe]]an settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.histoire-afrique.org/article76.html?artsuite=5 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111201193105/http://www.histoire-afrique.org/article76.html?artsuite=5 |title=Le Mali précolonial |language=fr |trans-title=Precolonial Mali |archive-date=1 December 2011}}</ref> [[Benin Empire|Benin]] grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/4chapter7.shtml |title=The Story of Africa: West African Kingdoms: Ife and Benin |work=[[BBC News]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419145124/https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/4chapter7.shtml |archive-date=19 April 2023}}</ref>

King Gezo of [[Dahomey]] said in the 1840s:

{{blockquote|The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth ... the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery ...<ref>{{cite magazine |title=The Editor's Shanty |magazine=The Anglo-American Magazine |date=July–December 1854 |volume=V |page=94 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qDQiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA94 |access-date=2 July 2014}}</ref><ref name="BBCAfrican" />}}

In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Bill that abolished the trading of slaves. The King of Bonny (now in [[Nigeria]]) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice:

{{blockquote|We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.<ref name="BBCAfrican">{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/9chapter2.shtml |title=The Story of Africa: Slavery: African Slave Owners |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=20 December 2019 |archive-date=23 December 2001 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011223090507/https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/9chapter2.shtml |url-status=live}}</ref>}}