Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===African slavery===
{{Main|Slavery in Africa}}
{{See also|History of slavery in the Muslim world|Trans-Saharan slave trade|Red Sea slave trade|Indian Ocean slave trade|Zanzibar slave trade}}
[[File:Arabslavers.jpg|thumb|A depiction of enslaved people transported across the [[Sahara|Sahara Desert]]]]

Slavery was prevalent in many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157 |title=Historical survey, Slave societies |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006131931/https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24157 |archive-date=6 October 2014}}</ref> Slavery was an important part of the economic structure of Africa although its relative importance and the role and treatment of enslaved people varied considerably by society.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovejoy |first=Paul E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dXVFnHqhLvcC |title=Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa |date=2011-10-10 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-50277-1 |language=en}}</ref>

Millions of enslaved Africans were transported to other parts of Africa, or exported to Europe and Asia prior to the Atlantic slave trade and the [[European colonization of the Americas]].<ref name="Clarence-Smith2006">{{cite book |first=William Gervase |last=Clarence-Smith |date=2006 |title=Islam and the Abolition of Slavery |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=11–12 |isbn=978-0-19-522151-0 |oclc=1045855145 |quote=Ralph Austen originally proposed that 17,000,000 Black slaves crossed the Sahara, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean [...] Paul Lovejoy reworked the data to indicate that over 6,000,000 left between 650 and 1500}}</ref><ref name="Ferro221">{{Cite book |last=Ferro |first=Mark |date=1997 |title=Colonization: A Global History |publisher=[[Routledge]] |page=221 |isbn=978-0-415-14007-2}}</ref> The [[Trans-Saharan slave trade]] across the Sahara had functioned since antiquity, and continued to do so up until the 20th-century; in 652, the [[Rashidun Caliphate]] in Egypt enforced an annual tribute of 400 slaves from the Christian Kingdom of [[Makuria]] by the [[Baqt]] treaty, which was to be in effect for centuries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Manning |first=P. |date=1990 |title=Slavery and African life: occidental, oriental, and African slave trades |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=28–29}}</ref> It supplied Africans for [[slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate]] (632–661), [[slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate|the Umayyad Caliphate]] (661–750), the [[slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate|Abbasid Caliphate]] (750–1258) and the [[slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate|Mamluk Sultanate]] (1258–1517).

The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa; as Elikia M'bokolo wrote in ''[[Le Monde diplomatique]]'':

{{blockquote|The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the [[Muslim world|Muslim countries]] (from the ninth to the nineteenth) ... Four million enslaved people [[Red Sea slave trade|exported via the Red Sea]], another four million<ref name="afbis"/> through the [[Swahili people|Swahili]] ports [[Indian Ocean slave trade|of the Indian Ocean]], perhaps as many as nine million along the [[Trans-Saharan trade|trans-Saharan]] caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.<ref>{{cite news |first=Elikia |last=M'bokolo |title=The impact of the slave trade on Africa |work=[[Le Monde diplomatique]] |url=http://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa |date=2 April 1998 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240517074917/https://mondediplo.com/1998/04/02africa |archive-date=17 May 2024}}</ref>}}

[[File:Slaves ruvuma.jpg|thumb|Enslaved Africans in chains marched to the East coast of Africa by Arab slavers]]

Slaves were marched in shackles to the coasts of Sudan, Ethiopia and Somali, placed upon [[dhow]]s and trafficked [[Indian Ocean slave trade|across the Indian Ocean]] to the [[Gulf of Aden]]. Others were carried [[Red Sea slave trade|across the Red Sea]] to Arabia and [[Aden]], with sick slaves being thrown overboard, or they were marched across the Sahara desert via the [[Trans-Saharan slave trade]] route to the [[Nile]], many of them dying from exposure or swollen feet along the way.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miers |first=S. |date=2003 |title=Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem |location=UK |publisher=AltaMira Press |page=16}}</ref>

Estimates are imprecise, which can affect comparison between different slave trades. Two rough estimates by scholars of the numbers African slaves held over twelve centuries in the Muslim world are 11.5 million<ref>{{harvnb|Lovejoy|1983|pp=}}: "Total of black slave trade in the Muslim world from Sahara, Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes through the 19th century comes to an estimated 11,500,000, "a figure not far short of the 11,863,000 estimated to have been loaded onto ships during the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade.""</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2024}} and 14 million,<ref>Raymond Mauny estimates a total of 14 million black slaves were traded in Islam through the 20th century, including 300,000 for part of the 20th century. (p.57, source: "Les Siecles obscurs de l'Afrique Noire (Paris: Fayard, 1970)]</ref><ref name="nyt-2015">{{cite news |last1=Hochschild |first1=Adam |date=4 March 2001 |title=Human Cargo |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html |url-status=live |access-date=1 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219112928/http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/04/reviews/010304.04hochsct.html |archive-date=19 December 2017 |quote=Early on in ''Islam's Black Slaves,'' his history of slavery in the Muslim world, Ronald Segal cites some estimates. One scholar puts the rough total at 11.5 million slaves during more than a dozen centuries, and another at 14 million.}}</ref> while other estimates indicate a number between 12 and 15 million African slaves prior to the 20th century.<ref name="Beigbeder2006">{{cite book |last=Beigbeder |first=Yves |title=Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940–2005) |date=2006 |publisher=[[Martinus Nijhoff Publishers]] |isbn=978-90-04-15329-5 |location=[[Leiden]] |page=42 |quote=Historian Roger Botte estimates that Arab slave trade of Africans until the 20th century has involved from 12 to 15 million persons, with the active participation of African leaders.}}</ref>

According to [[John K. Thornton]], Europeans usually bought enslaved people who had been captured in [[endemic warfare]] between African states.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=112}} Some Africans had made a business out of capturing war captives or members of neighboring ethnic groups and selling them.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=310}} A reminder of this practice is documented in debates over the trade in the British Parliament in 1806: "All the old writers ... concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object."<ref>{{cite book |title=Slave Trade Debates 1806 |series=Colonial History |publisher=Dawsons of Pall Mall |location=London |date=1968 |pages=203–204}}</ref> People living around the [[Niger River]] would be transported from these markets to the coast and sold in European trading ports, in exchange for [[musket]]s and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=45}} The European demand for slaves provided a new and larger market for the already existing trade.{{sfn|Thornton|1998|p=94}} While those held as slaves in their own region of Africa could hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to their homeland.<ref>{{cite web |title=Slavery before the Trans-Atlantic Trade |url=https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/slaverybeforetrade |website=Lowcountry History Digital Initiative |publisher=Lowcountry Digital Library at the College of Charleston |access-date=16 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240331202010/https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/slaverybeforetrade |archive-date=31 March 2024}}</ref>