74 Joseph E. InikoriThese are not isolated cases, for similar references can be found in the works
of other writers on the subject.^83
Historians have always tried to relate the socio-political and socio-eco-
nomic conditions created in Africa by the slave trade to political processes,
particularly those connected with the rise and decline of States, kingdoms and
empires. What has been neglected is an analysis that will explicitly relate those
conditions to the process of economic development in Africa. In the matter
of State formation, for instance, if the slave trade gave rise to some larger and
more powerful States, one would like to know whether such States directed
or took part in economic activities likely to bring about economic development;
whether they made conscious efforts to provide peaceful conditions under which
private enterprise could have helped to bring about economic development;
or, finally, whether they consciously made any efforts to evolve or encourage
the evolution of institutional arrangements essential for economic development.
If the answers to all these questions are negative, one would like to know why.
It is well known that during the period of the slave trade not only did the
States whose rise may be associated with that trade fail to do any of the things
specified above, but even others, like the kingdom of Benin failed to do so.
The explanation is simple. The former remained largely slave-trading States
and so had no political or economic incentives to develop other resources,
or to encourage private enterprise to do so by providing peaceful conditions,
while the other States also became largely involved in the slave trade, or in
defending themselves against the activities of slave-trading States. On the
other hand, the requirements of the slave trade were such that they could not
stimulate any infrastructural developments in the slave-trading States. For
instance, the fact that the slaves transported themselves along bush paths
eliminated any possible pressure to build good roads and to encourage artisans
to build 'the wheel' to facilitate the flow of trade".
From the point of view of the private sector, the chaotic conditions which
the slave trade created and which helped to sustain its momentum for several
centuries raised transaction costs enormously and so retarded the growth of
market activities. Any reading of the European company records bears this
out. In a letter to the Royal African Company in Great Britain, an official of
the company resident on the African Coast wrote :
at best the Waterside Kings, and Great Cabbasheers (so called) are but poor great
rogues, for when they do not disturb the traders, and are not at war with one another
for a livelihood combine and lay their heads together to contrive how to abuse and
cheat your honours and the Dutch West India Company.^61
Obviously, the slave trade was not a gentleman's trade, and what the Europeans
say about the African dealers, the former also say about each other, for the
same writer quoted above had cause to say :