page_title: History of West Africa
section_title: Slave trade
hierarchical_section_title: History of West Africa / Cultural history / Slave trade
caption_attribution_description: Map of North West Africa (original title: Carte de la Barbarie de la Nigritie et de La Guinee)
context_page_description: The history of West Africa has been commonly divided into its prehistory, the Iron Age in Africa, the major polities flourishing, the colonial period, and finally the post-independence era, in which the current nations were formed. West Africa is west of an imagined north-south axis lying close to 10° east longitude, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Sahara Desert.
  Colonial boundaries are reflected in the modern boundaries between contemporary West African states, cutting across ethnic and cultural lines, often dividing single ethnic groups between two or more states. During the Holocene, sedentary farming began to develop in West Africa. The Iron industry, in both smelting and forging for tools and weapons, appeared in Sub-Saharan Africa by 1200 BCE, and by 400 BCE, contact had been made with the Mediterranean civilizations, and a regular trade included exporting gold, cotton, metal, and leather in exchange for copper, horses, salt, textiles, and beads. The Nok culture would develop. and vanished under unknown circumstances around 500 AD, thus having lasted approximately 2,000 years. The Serer people would construct the Senegambian stone circles.
context_section_description: Following the collapse of the Songhai Empire, a number of smaller states arose across West Africa, including the Bambara Empire of Ségou, the lesser Bambara kingdom of Kaarta, the Fula/Malinké kingdom of Khasso (in present-day Mali's Kayes Region), and the Kénédougou Empire of Sikasso.
  European traders first became a force in the region in the 15th century, with the 1445 establishment of a Portuguese trading post at Arguin Island, off the coast of present-day Senegal; by 1475, Portuguese traders had reached as far as the Bight of Benin. The transatlantic African slave trade began almost immediately after based on the already well established slave trading capacity serving the Islamic world, with the Portuguese taking hundreds of captives back to their country for use as slaves; however, it would not begin on a grand scale until Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas and the subsequent demand for cheap colonial labour. In 1510, the Spanish crown legalised the African slave trade, followed by the English in 1562. By 1650 the slave trade was in full force at a number of sites along the coast of West Africa, and over the coming centuries would result in severely reduced growth for the region's population and economy. The expanding Atlantic slave trade produced significant populations of West Africans living in the New World, recently colonised by Europeans. The oldest known remains of African slaves in the Americas were found in Mexico in early 2006; they are thought to date from the late 16th century and the mid-17th century.
  As the demand for slaves increased, some African rulers sought to supply the demand by constant war against their neighbours, resulting in fresh captives. States such as Dahomey (in modern-day Benin) and the Bambara Empire-based much of their economy on the exchange of slaves for European goods, particularly firearms that they then employed to capture more slaves. Moreover, during colonial rule both British and Dutch authorities were active in recruiting African slaves into the national military service. As it was believed that African black population was more immune than Europeans to the tropical diseases present in India and Indonesia. Recruitment changed format after the Atlantic slave trade was abolished by European and American governments in 19th century. For instance, 1831 was the first year when only volunteers were accepted for the military service.
  Though slavery in the Americas persisted in some capacity even after it was prohibited; the last country to abolish the institution was Brazil in 1888. Descendants of West Africans make up large and important segments of the population in Brazil, the Caribbean, the United States, and throughout the New World.
  African Americans in several major US cities who took part in a genetic research study, concluded that their common ancestry originated most prominently in western Africa which is consistent with prior genetic studies and the history of slave trade.
caption: 1707 map of West Africa, by Guillaume Delisle
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