Before the African Slaves were put on slave ships?

Question

What events brought the slaves from Central Africa to the port as slaves to be sold to the ship owners?

Clearly the ship owners did not hike 1000 miles into central Africa to capture and bring back Slaves. What I am not clear on is who actually went into the villages and captured the people from the villages?

Was it tribal warfare (similar to what is happening now) where one tribe attacked and captured another tribe and sold the slaves in the port?

Answer 1

Yes, from what I've read, prisoners of rivaling tribes would be sold off to the English in exchange for other items such as tools or guns.

Answer 2

Yes, it was tribal warfare.  It was also greed.

Yes, blacks captured blacks and sold them.  Yes, whites captured blacks and sold them.  It is the old story of the powerful getting together and becoming more powerful and taking advantage of the weak.

Religion was involved, also, in that one religious group banded together and armed themselves and took those who were not of the "correct" religion and sold them off as slaves.  This allowed them to feel less guilty.

You can read stories today about children who are captured and taken from their villages.  (Some of those who escaped have written books on this subject.)  It sounds horrible, but the children are forced to be shepards to large sheep herds, or to guard cattle.  Of course, if they lose a sheep or a head of cattle, they are either punished or killed.  And, when they reach the age of 12 or 13, they are considered a risk, so they are killed, and new children are captured and become slaves.

Power can corrupt, and as the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Answer 3

It wasn't just one thing, and they didn't all come from central Africa. Europeans were also known to spark conflicts between tribes to get more slaves from the winning side. Gotta feed the beast I guess...

Answer 4

Duh dude that was way before my time.  You gonna have to ask someone older..sorry.