Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===African participation in the slave trade===
[[File:Marchands d'esclaves de Gorée-Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur mg 8526.jpg|thumb|upright|Slave traders in [[Gorée]], Senegal, 18th century]]

African partners, including rulers, traders and military aristocrats, played a direct role in the slave trade. They sold slaves acquired from wars or through kidnapping to Europeans or their agents.<ref name="afbis">{{cite journal |url=http://www.afbis.com/analysis/slave.htm |title=Slave trade: a root of contemporary African Crisis |journal=Africa Economic Analysis |year=2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502172215/http://www.afbis.com/analysis/slave.htm |archive-date=2 May 2012 |last=Obadina |first=Tunde}}</ref> Those sold into slavery were usually from a different ethnic group than those who captured them, whether enemies or just neighbors.<ref name="ldhi"/> These captive slaves were considered "other", not part of the people of the ethnic group or "tribe"; African kings were only interested in protecting their own ethnic group, but sometimes criminals would be sold to get rid of them.<ref name="afbis"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Foster |first1=Herbert |title=Partners or Captives in Commerce?: The Role of Africans in the Slave Trade |journal=Journal of Black Studies |date=1976 |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=421–434 |doi=10.1177/002193477600600408 |jstor=2783771 |s2cid=145541392 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2783771 |access-date=17 January 2024 |archive-date=17 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240117152155/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2783771 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Most other slaves were obtained from kidnappings, or through raids that occurred at gunpoint through joint ventures with the Europeans.<ref name="afbis"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Foster |first1=Herbert |title=Partners or Captives in Commerce?: The Role of Africans in the Slave Trade |journal=Journal of Black Studies |date=1976 |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=421–434 |doi=10.1177/002193477600600408 |jstor=2783771 |s2cid=145541392 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2783771 |access-date=17 January 2024 |archive-date=17 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240117152155/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2783771 |url-status=live}}</ref> The kingdom of Dahomey supplied war captives to European slave traders.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last1=Law |first1=Robin |title=Slave-Raiders and Middlemen, Monopolists and Free-Traders: The Supply of Slaves for the Atlantic Trade in Dahomey c. 1715-1850 |journal=The Journal of African History |date=1989 |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=45–68 |doi=10.1017/S0021853700030875 |jstor=182694 |s2cid=165485173 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/182694 |access-date=23 January 2024}}</ref> Dahomey King [[Agaja]], who ruled from 1718 to 1740, took control of key trade routes for the Atlantic slave trade by conquering the neighbouring kingdoms of [[Allada]] in 1724 and [[Kingdom of Whydah|Whydah]] in 1727.<ref name=":0" /> A decrease in the slave trade in the area was observed after this conquest, however Agaja did create significant infrastructure for the slave trade and actively participated in it towards the end of his reign.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Falola|first1=Toyin|last2=Warnock|first2=Amanda|title=Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage|year=2007|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CT|isbn=9780313334801|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UjRYKePKrB8C&q=Agaja|oclc=230753290|pages=129}}</ref>

According to Pernille Ipsen, author of ''Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast,'' Africans from the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) also participated in the slave trade through intermarriage, or ''[[cassare]]'' (taken from Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese), meaning 'to set up house'. It is derived from the Portuguese word {{lang|pt|'casar'}}, meaning 'to marry'. ''Cassare'' formed political and economic bonds between European and African slave traders. ''Cassare'' was a pre-European-contact practice used to integrate the "other" from a differing African tribe. Early on in the Atlantic slave trade, it was common for the powerful elite West African families to marry off their women to the European traders in alliance, bolstering their syndicate. The marriages were even performed using African customs, which Europeans did not object to, seeing how important the connections were.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ipsen |first1=Pernille |title=Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast |date=2015 |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]] |isbn=978-0-8122-4673-5 |pages=1, 21, 31}}</ref>