Did Africans Sell Other Africans? How African Communities Resisted, Refused, and Opposed the Slave Trade between 1400 and 1900.
Introduction
If the slave trade generated wealth, military advantages, and political influence, why did some African rulers and communities choose to oppose it? The question is an important one because discussions of African participation in the Atlantic slave trade often focus on those who profited from the trade while overlooking those who resisted it. Yet across different regions and periods, rulers, merchants, religious leaders, and ordinary communities expressed opposition to the trade in various ways. Some restricted the export of captives. Others protested against foreign traders, resisted slave raiding, fortified settlements, or abandoned vulnerable territories altogether. Their responses differed, but together they reveal that participation in the slave trade was neither universal nor uncontested.[1]
Understanding this resistance is essential because it exposes another side of the Atlantic slave trade often overshadowed by narratives of profit and participation. The same political, economic, and military forces that encouraged some African societies to engage in the trade also prompted others to oppose it. In many cases, resistance emerged from concerns about security, population loss, political stability, and social disruption.[2] In others, rulers feared that the trade was undermining their authority, weakening their states, or enriching rival powers at their expense. Examining these responses allows us to see the slave trade not simply as a system that attracted participants, but also as one that generated opposition from those who experienced its destructive consequences.
1. Resistance Was Never One Thing
Resistance to the slave trade took many forms and cannot be reduced to a single pattern of behavior. Some rulers attempted to restrict or prohibit the export of captives from their territories.[3] Others sought to regulate commerce with European traders or redirect economic activity toward alternative commodities such as ivory, cloth, pepper, gold, or palm products.[4] In some regions, opposition emerged through diplomacy, negotiations, and formal protests. In others, resistance took the form of military action, fortified settlements, community self-defence, migration, and flight.
This diversity reflected the equally diverse ways in which African societies experienced the slave trade. Coastal states often confronted different challenges from inland communities. Large, centralized kingdoms faced different pressures from smaller societies vulnerable to raids. Merchant groups, political elites, religious leaders, and ordinary villagers frequently possessed different interests and therefore responded differently to the expanding trade.[5]
Consequently, resistance should not be understood as a simple rejection of all forms of commerce with Europeans. Many societies continued to engage in trade while opposing particular aspects of the slave trade. Others restricted participation during certain periods but engaged in it during others. The historical reality was often complex and shaped by changing political circumstances, economic opportunities, and security concerns.[6]
Recognizing this complexity is important because it prevents resistance from becoming a romanticized narrative detached from historical realities. African opposition to the slave trade was real, but it was neither uniform nor coordinated across the continent. Instead, it emerged through a wide range of strategies employed by societies attempting to protect their populations, preserve their autonomy, or respond to the disruptions created by the trade.
2. Rulers and States That Restricted or Rejected the Trade
Among the clearest examples of resistance were rulers and states that attempted, at various times, to restrict, regulate, or reduce participation in the slave trade. Their motivations varied, but many shared concerns about population loss, political instability, and the long-term consequences of exporting large numbers of people.[7]
One of the most frequently cited examples is the Kingdom of Benin in present-day southern Nigeria. Although Benin participated in the slave trade during certain periods, its rulers repeatedly imposed restrictions on slave exports and sought to limit the kingdom's dependence on the trade.[8] Instead, Benin increasingly emphasized alternative forms of commerce, including ivory, pepper, cloth, coral, and other goods. Historians have argued that these policies reflected both economic calculations and concerns about maintaining political stability within the kingdom.[9] Benin's experience demonstrates that participation in the slave trade was not inevitable and that rulers could pursue different commercial strategies even while operating within the wider Atlantic economy.
Further north, the Mossi states of present-day Burkina Faso provide another important example. Situated near major commercial networks and frequently exposed to slave-raiding pressures, the Mossi kingdoms often resisted incorporation into large-scale export systems that supplied captives to Atlantic markets.[10] Their military institutions developed in part as responses to external threats, while their rulers sought to preserve political independence against neighboring powers involved in slave raiding and captive trading.[11] Although the Mossi were not entirely isolated from regional systems of slavery, they generally avoided becoming major exporters of captives to the Atlantic trade.
Examples of resistance also appeared within parts of the Islamic states of West Africa. In regions such as Futa Toro in present-day Senegal and Futa Jallon in present-day Guinea, some leaders criticized aspects of the trade and attempted to regulate the enslavement of fellow Muslims.[12] These restrictions were not always consistently enforced, nor did they eliminate participation in slavery altogether. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that religious considerations could influence how rulers and communities responded to the expanding trade.
These examples reveal an important historical reality. Even in regions deeply affected by Atlantic commerce, rulers retained the capacity to make choices about how they engaged with the trade. Those choices were often constrained by political and economic pressures, but they were not entirely predetermined. The existence of states that restricted, regulated, or redirected participation challenges the notion that African societies responded uniformly to the opportunities and incentives created by the Atlantic slave trade.
3. Afonso I and the Politics of Opposition
While some rulers expressed their opposition through policy, others left behind direct evidence of their concerns. Among the most important was Afonso I of Kongo, who ruled the Kingdom of Kongo from approximately 1509 to 1543. The kingdom was located largely within present-day northern Angola and western Democratic Republic of the Congo.[13] His correspondence with the Portuguese Crown provides one of the clearest surviving African voices criticizing aspects of the slave trade and the disruptions it was causing within his kingdom.
Initially, Kongo's relationship with Portugal had been built upon diplomacy, Christianity, and commercial exchange. However, as Portuguese demand for captives increased, Afonso became increasingly alarmed by the effects of the trade.[14] In a series of letters written to King João III of Portugal, he complained that Portuguese traders and their African collaborators were purchasing not only legitimate captives but also free subjects of the kingdom, including nobles, relatives of prominent families, and individuals who had been unlawfully seized.[15]
Afonso's concerns extended beyond individual cases. He feared that the uncontrolled trade was undermining royal authority, encouraging corruption among local officials, and draining the kingdom of people essential to its stability and prosperity.[16] His letters reveal a ruler attempting not simply to regulate commerce but to protect the political integrity of his state from forces that increasingly lay beyond his control.
Yet Afonso's efforts also illustrate the limitations of resistance. Despite repeated protests, the economic incentives driving the trade remained powerful, and Portuguese demand for captives continued to grow.[17] The king could criticize abuses and attempt reforms, but he struggled to prevent merchants, local elites, and foreign traders from profiting from the expanding commerce. His experience demonstrates that opposition often confronted interests far larger than any individual ruler could easily overcome.
For historians, Afonso's correspondence is significant as it attempts to provide direct evidence that concerns about the slave trade emerged within Africa long before abolition movements developed in Europe and the Americas. It also reveals that resistance was frequently rooted in practical concerns about governance, social stability, and population loss rather than abstract moral arguments alone.[18]
4. Resistance Among Ordinary Communities
Opposition to the slave trade was not limited to kings and political elites. Across many regions of Africa, ordinary communities developed their own strategies for resisting slave raiding and protecting vulnerable populations.[19] These efforts often emerged in areas where the threat of capture had become a persistent feature of daily life.
One common response involved the construction of defensive settlements. Communities relocated to hilltops, dense forests, islands, marshlands, and other locations that offered protection against raiders.[20] In parts of West Africa, settlements were increasingly designed with security in mind, incorporating defensive barriers, restricted access points, and positions that made surprise attacks more difficult. Such measures reflected the extent to which slave raiding had reshaped local concerns about safety and survival.
In other regions, communities organized militias and local defense forces to deter attacks.[21] Villages vulnerable to raiding frequently relied upon collective defense arrangements, while neighboring settlements sometimes cooperated to provide mutual protection. These efforts did not always succeed, particularly against larger and better-armed forces, but they demonstrate that many communities actively resisted rather than passively accepting the threat posed by slave raiders.
The effects of this resistance extended beyond military confrontation. Persistent insecurity encouraged populations to alter settlement patterns, modify agricultural practices, and limit movement across previously accessible territories.[22] Markets could become less secure, long-distance travel more dangerous, and economic activity increasingly constrained by concerns about capture. In this way, resistance reflected not only a desire to defend individuals but also a broader effort to preserve community life under increasingly difficult circumstances.
These defensive responses appeared across different regions and political systems. Although the specific methods varied, they reveal a common pattern: many African communities recognized the dangers posed by slave raiding and devoted considerable resources to resisting it. Their actions demonstrate that the expansion of the slave trade frequently encountered opposition at the local level, even when larger political forces continued to sustain the trade.
5. Migration, Flight, and Resistance from Below
Not all resistance took the form of armed defense. For many communities, survival depended upon avoiding slave raiders altogether. Migration and flight therefore became among the most widespread yet often overlooked forms of opposition to the slave trade.[23]
As raiding intensified in certain regions, entire populations abandoned ancestral settlements and relocated to areas that offered greater security. Some moved into forests, mountains, swamps, or remote frontier zones. Others sought protection under stronger states capable of defending their populations against attack.[24] Although such movements varied in scale and motivation, they reflected a conscious effort to escape the violence and insecurity associated with slave trading networks.
The consequences of these migrations could be profound. Communities that had occupied particular regions for generations sometimes abandoned fertile agricultural lands in favor of locations that were easier to defend.[25] Population movements altered patterns of settlement, changed local economies, and reshaped political relationships across large areas of the continent. In some cases, new communities emerged as displaced groups sought to rebuild their lives beyond the reach of slave raiders.
Resistance also occurred among those already captured. Historical evidence suggests that captives frequently attempted escape during forced marches to the coast, resisted confinement in holding facilities, and in some cases organized revolts aboard slave ships.[26] While many such efforts were unsuccessful, they demonstrate that opposition to the trade existed at every stage of the process. Individuals facing enslavement did not simply submit to their circumstances; many actively sought opportunities to regain their freedom.
These forms of resistance are particularly important because they highlight voices that are often difficult to recover from the historical record. Unlike rulers who left written correspondence, most ordinary Africans affected by the slave trade left few direct accounts of their experiences. Yet the evidence of migration, flight, escape, and rebellion reveals that resistance extended far beyond political elites and was deeply embedded within the daily struggle for survival.
6. Why Resistance Often Failed
The existence of resistance should not obscure the reality that the slave trade continued for centuries despite opposition from rulers, communities, and captives themselves.[27] Understanding why resistance often failed is therefore as important as understanding why it emerged in the first place. The answer lies not in the absence of opposition but in the scale and complexity of the forces sustaining the trade.
One of the most significant challenges confronting those who resisted was the enormous demand for enslaved labor across the Atlantic world.[28] Plantation economies in Brazil, the Caribbean, and the Americas required a constant supply of laborers, creating a market that generated immense profits for merchants, ship owners, political elites, and states on both sides of the Atlantic. As long as that demand remained strong, commercial incentives continued to encourage the acquisition and export of captives.
Resistance also faced powerful regional pressures within Africa itself. As some states gained access to wealth, firearms, and political advantages through participation in the trade, neighboring societies often found themselves at a disadvantage.[29] Rulers who sought to restrict participation could face rivals whose growing military strength had been financed through slave exports. In such circumstances, refusing to participate sometimes carried risks that appeared just as threatening as participation itself.
Political fragmentation further complicated efforts to oppose the trade.[30] Africa was not a single political entity but a continent composed of hundreds of kingdoms, states, chiefdoms, and communities pursuing their own interests and responding to local circumstances. While some societies resisted, others participated. While some rulers restricted exports, others expanded them. The absence of coordinated continental action made it difficult for resistance in one region to significantly disrupt the wider trading system.
The military imbalance created by access to firearms added another challenge. Although firearms did not automatically determine the outcome of conflicts, states and groups able to acquire weapons through the trade frequently gained advantages over those that could not.[31] Communities attempting to defend themselves often faced better-armed opponents whose access to weapons had been reinforced by the very commerce they were resisting.
Even where resistance succeeded locally, it often failed to eliminate the broader networks sustaining the trade. Slave raiding could shift to neighboring regions. Merchants could redirect commerce through alternative routes. European traders could establish relationships with different suppliers.[32] The flexibility of the system made it difficult for isolated acts of resistance to produce lasting change across the wider Atlantic world.
For these reasons, resistance frequently confronted forces that extended far beyond individual rulers or communities. Opposition was real and often determined, but it faced an interconnected system linking Atlantic demand, African political rivalries, commercial incentives, and military competition. It was this broader structure, rather than a lack of resistance, that helps explain the remarkable persistence of the slave trade.
7. The Limits and Legacy of Resistance
However, to focus solely on the failures of resistance would be to misunderstand its historical significance. The importance of African opposition to the slave trade lies not only in its ability to halt particular raids, restrict commerce, or protect specific communities, but also in what it reveals about African responses to one of the most disruptive systems in the continent's history.[33]
The rulers who restricted exports, the communities that fortified settlements, the populations that fled vulnerable regions, and the captives who resisted enslavement all demonstrate that the slave trade was neither universally accepted nor passively endured.[34] Across different regions and periods, Africans made choices, pursued alternatives, and sought to defend their societies against forces they believed threatened their security, stability, and survival.
Their efforts also challenge simplistic portrayals of African participation in the slave trade. The historical record reveals not a continent moving in a single direction but one characterized by competing interests, conflicting priorities, and diverse responses.[35] Some sought profit. Others sought protection. Some embraced the opportunities created by Atlantic commerce. Others attempted to limit, regulate, or oppose its effects. Understanding this complexity is essential if we are to move beyond generalized narratives and appreciate the varied experiences of African societies during this period.
Perhaps most importantly, resistance demonstrates that many Africans recognized the dangers posed by the slave trade long before abolition movements gained momentum elsewhere in the world.[36] Their concerns were often expressed through the language of security, governance, population loss, and social stability rather than modern concepts of human rights, yet they reflected a clear awareness that the trade carried profound consequences for their communities.
In conclusion, the history of the Atlantic slave trade is often told through the actions of those who participated in it, profited from it, and helped sustain it. Yet alongside that history existed another story: the story of those who resisted. From rulers who restricted exports and protested against abuses, to communities that fortified settlements and fled vulnerable territories, to captives who fought for their freedom even after capture, opposition to the trade emerged across many parts of Africa and took many different forms.[37]
Although these efforts rarely succeeded in dismantling the wider system, they reveal that African responses to the slave trade were never uniform. Participation existed alongside resistance, profit alongside opposition, and accommodation alongside refusal. Recognizing this reality not only provides a fuller understanding of the slave trade itself but also restores to the historical record the voices of those who sought, in different ways and under difficult circumstances, to resist one of the largest forced migrations in human history.
End Notes.
[1] Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 108–115.
[2] John K. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 110–116.
[3] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, pp. 108–115.
[4] A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897 (London: Longman, 1969), pp. 52–68.
[5] Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, pp. 110–116.
[6] Robin Law, The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 214–220.
[7] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, pp. 108–115.
[8] A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897, pp. 83–92.
[9] Paula Ben-Amos, The Art of Benin (London: Thames & Hudson, 1980), pp. 18–24; Ryder, Benin and the Europeans, pp. 83–92.
[10] Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 104–110.
[11] Mahir Şaul and Patrick Royer, West African Challenge to Empire: Culture and History in the Volta-Bani Anticolonial War (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001), pp. 22–28.
[12] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, pp. 115–121.
[13] John K. Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 22–30.
[14] John K. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 110–113.
[15] Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, pp. 111–113.
[16] Linda M. Heywood and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 34–40.
[17] Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, pp. 113–116.
[18] Heywood and Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, pp. 40–43.
[19] Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 121–128.
[20] Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 104–112.
[21] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, pp. 121–128.
[22] Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 130–145.
[23] Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 112–118.
[24] Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 118–122.
[25] Miller, Way of Death, pp. 145–155.
[26] Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2007), pp. 213–228.
[27] Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 121–130.
[28] David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 15–23.
[29] John K. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 97–116.
[30] Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 122–128.
[31] Robin Law, The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 90–98.
[32] Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 155–165.
[33] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, pp. 130–135.
[34] Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, pp. 110–116.
[35] Manning, Slavery and African Life, pp. 122–130.
[36] Linda M. Heywood and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 40–43.
[37] Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, pp. 121–135.
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Research by: Emmer Atwiine
Paper written by: Ezron Kaijuka.
