Warfare, of course, existed long before the arrival of the Portuguese,
but it increased in scale and frequency under the impact of European
firearms. Whereas the Portuguese had sought to keep their matchlocks and
cannon to themselves, other Europeans used arms to trade for slaves. A
Dutch memorandum of 1730 commented that the “great quantity of guns
and powder that the Europeans have brought here... has caused terrible
wars.” Firearms changed the balance of power among the African states, as
would later happen among the American Indian nations. Those who
acquired them were able to overwhelm their neighbors. Minor states that
could buy arms—like Denkyira, Akyim, and Akwamu—now rose to new
power. Societies lacking firearms, like the Ewe, Whydah, and Aja, lost tens
of thousands as prisoners of war and then slaves. At war with one another,
the little African states could no more than the American Indians resist
trading for firearms. In their struggles with one another, muskets were the
key to survival. That absolute requirement accounts, at least in part, for
their willingness to supply the slave trade.
But why, some writers have asked, did slavery exist at all? The short
answer is that in Africa, as virtually everywhere else in the world from
before the earliest records were kept, societies used human beings as
domesticated animals. African villages, kingdoms, and empires followed the
same practices, staffing their administrations, conscripting their armies, and
running their economies with slaves. Probably most slaves fell into slavery
by birth, but thousands of others were enslaved as prisoners of war. Still
others were condemned to slavery for crimes, as judged by the application
of traditional law by town councils. A person might also be forced into a
limited period of slavery for debt; this might be compared to the practice in
England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries whereby a debtor
might be “sold” into exile. Finally, a person might be sold into slavery, as
Olaudah Equiano was, after being kidnapped. Only kidnapping, particu-
larly if members of the upper class were the victims, was thought morally
wrong or legally actionable.
No one paid attention to Olaudah Equiano; but when two princes of
the Efik people in the little slave-dealing state of Calabar on the Bight of
Bonny were enslaved, slave traders attempted to find and return the victims
lest African authorities close ports, seize European goods, or take hostages.
These actions were sufficiently successful that on more than one occasion,
94 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA