216 Summary report of the meeting of experts
on the African slave trade
trade grew to massive proportions. Despite its legal abolition, it was maintained,
to a varying extent according to region in the nineteenth and in places even into
the twentieth century, and took different clandestine forms.
While the analysis of the pressures exerted on Black Africa by the demand
for labour appeared to be relatively well developed today, the analysis of eco-
nomic and social consequences was found to be far less advanced. In many
cases, hypotheses still have to suffice.
It would seem that, before the fifteenth century, there was an economic devel-
opment that was characteristically African. The accelerated demand for
labour abroad impaired and then put an end to this development. This
is the most logical explanation for the absence of economic vitality in
African societies at the time of the European capitalist expansion.
The slave trade appeared to have provided some already organized African
trading societies with the ready-made solution of exchanging human
beings for imported goods. Where no specialized trading function existed,
those who held political power had to make a choice between accepting
the proposed slave trade or refusing, with all the consequences. European
pressures in this field continued to increase from the sixteenth century—
when they already existed for example in the Congo and in Zimbabwe—
to the eighteenth century. In the case of some African societies the choice
was often decisive, for instance the Ovimbundu in Angola, in order to
survive as an organized group, entered into the system of the Portuguese
slave trade.
The import of manufactured articles probably reduced the Africans' incentive
to produce: this was no doubt the case of iron production in Senegambia.
There was a similarly increasing demand for raw materials—ivory, furs
and skins, gum, etc.—which were useful for industrial development in
Europe. It is also probable that the diversion of a considerable part of
the labour force to slavery and the slave trade prevented the establish-
ment of a pool of manpower available for agriculture and the production
of manufactured goods.
Little by little the slave trade acquired the support of a new class of rich mer-
chants, whose origins varied according to the region and who were often
able to oppose the African political authorities successfully when the
latter showed unwillingness to co-operate in the slave trade. This mer-
chant class should be carefully studied.
It was considered that the development of a deep-seated sense of insecurity
and the increase of inter-ethnic or social tensions created an 'anti-
economic mentality' in Africa: all that the Africans were concerned
about was to survive through modest and routine work in proportion
to needs. It was felt that this point should also be the subject of very
careful studies.