The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades (original) (raw)
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The Impact of the Slave Trade on African Economies
This paper has three parts. The first part presents econometric evidence showing that increases in the international demand for enslaved Africans induced a reallocation of resources in Africa towards slave production and away from other economic pursuits. In the second part, we use this evidence to help specify a theoretical model of conflict and cooperation in Africa before and after the slave trade. Our goal is to reveal the conditions under which the slave trade not only reallocated resources, but also produced several externalities thought to impede long-term development in Africa. These include constraints on the growth of African states, increases in ethnic and social stratification, and a sustained culture of violence. In the third part of the paper, we test the predictions of this model against the history of the Asante Empire (present-day Ghana). We find that the model explains Asantes origins and expansion well, including the Asante Alliance, the causes and timing of territorial expansion, and the " southern problem. "
The Fundamental Impact of the Slave Trade on African Economies
We first establish the empirical fact that the international demand for African slaves reallocated the resources of African economies. We call this a situation of Effective Demand. We then develop a theoretical model of conflict and cooperation in Africa to reveal the conditions under which Effective Demand not only reallocated resources, but also produced externalities thought to impede long-term development. These include constraints on the growth of African states, increases in ethnic and social stratification, and a sustained culture of political violence.
How the International Slave Trades Underdeveloped Africa
The Journal of Economic History
I use newly-developed data on Africa to estimate the effects of the international slave trades (circa 1500–1850) on the institutional structures of African economies and societies (circa 1900). I find that: (1) societies in slave catchment zones adopted slavery to defend against further enslavement; (2) slave trades spread slavery and polygyny together; (3) politically centralized aristocratic slave regimes emerge in West Africa and family-based accumulations of slave wealth in East Africa. I discuss implications for literatures on long-term legacies in African political and economic development.
Slavery, Institutional Development
2005
Can Africa's current state of under-development be partially attributed to the large trade in slaves that occurred during the Atlantic, Saharan, Red Sea and Indian Ocean slave trades? To answer this question, I combine shipping data with historical records that report slave ethnicities and construct measures of the number of slaves exported from each country in Africa between 1400 and 1913. I find the number of slaves exported from a country to be an important determinant of economic performance in the second half of the 20th century. To correct for potential biases arising from measurement error and unobservable country characteristics, I instrument slave exports using measures of the distance from each country to the major slave markets around the world. I also find that the importance of the slave trade for contemporary development is a result of its detrimental impact on the formation of domestic institutions, such as the security of private property, the quality of the judicial system, and the overall rule of law. This is the channel through which the slave trade continues to matter today.
The Impact of the Transatlantic Slave Trade on Ethnic Stratification in Africa
The last decade has been a golden age for the study of African economic history. As noted by Antony G. Hopkins (2009), “economists have produced a new economic history of Africa in the course of the past decade,” with two primary narratives. The first narrative is that “Africa has suffered a ‘reversal of fortune’ during the past 500 years.” The second is that “ethnic fragmentation, which has deep historical roots, is a distinct cause of African economic backwardness (p. 155).” In this article, we argue that these narratives are interconnected. In particular, we argue that Africa’s slave trade, which helped drive its reversal of fortune, increased the degree of ethnic fragmentation in Africa today. In a prior paper, Whatley and Gillezeau (2011) show that under plausible conditions the slave trade may have constrained the geographic scope of authority and increased the salience of ethnic identity. In this paper we empirically test this relationship. Using both OLS and instrumental variables analysis, we find an economically and statistically significant positive relationship between various measures of ethnic fragmentation in the present and slave exports from the western coast of Africa in the past.
Slavery, Statehood, and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
World Development, 2014
Although Africa's indigenous systems of slavery have been extensively described in the historical literature, comparatively little attention has been paid to analyzing its long term impact on economic and political development. Based on data collected from anthropological records we conduct an econometric analysis. We find that indigenous slavery is robustly and negatively associated with current income levels, but not with income levels immediately after independence. We explore one channel of transmission from indigenous slavery to income growth consistent with this changing effect over time and find evidence that indigenous slavery impeded the development of capable and accountable states in Africa.
On the causes of the African Slave Trade
This paper offers an integrated analysis of the forces shaping the emergence of the African slave trade over the early modern period. We focus our attention on two questions. First, why most of the increase in the demand for slaves during this period came exclusively from western Europeans. Second, and of most relevance for present-day development outcomes, why was the overwhelming majority of slaves of African origin. Technological differences in manufacturing technology, the specificities of sugar (and other crops') production, and the cultural fragmentation of the African continent all play a role in the analysis. Supporting evidence for each of our claims is provided from a broad corpus of relevant literature.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade and local political fragmentation in Africa
Political institutions and the balance of political power strongly influence the evolution of economic institutions, making them important for economic growth. The nature of political institutions and the distribution of political power and influence, in their turn, can be significantly affected by major events (Acemoglu, Robinson & Johnson 2005). As I show in my article, political institutions in Africa were substantially affected by such a major event, the transAtlantic slave trade (Obikili 2016a). Long-run effects of the transAtlantic slave trade
TO WHAT EXTENT DID TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE UNDERDEVELOP AFRICA
The Transatlantic slave trade drastically diminished Africa’s potential to economically develop and to maintain its stability socially and politically. The arrival of Europeans on the West African Coast and their establishment of slave ports in various parts of the continent triggered a continuous process of exploitation of Africa’s human resources, labor, and commodities. This exploitative trade influenced major segments of the African political and religious upper crust, the warrior classes, and the biracial elite, who were making small gains from the slave trade, to this they participated or even championed in the oppression of their own people. Nevertheless, the Europeans benefited from the transatlantic slave trade the most, since the trade allowed them to amass the raw materials that fed their Industrial Revolution at the detriment of African societies whose peace and capacity to transform their modes of production into a viable entrepreneurial economy was severely stopped. The slave trade not only led to the violent transportation overseas of millions of Africans but also to the deaths of many millions more. In this paper we will examine the extent in specifics to which the transatlantic slave under developed the African continent.
Can the economic performances of African Economies been explained by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade? Is this a complete or simply a partial explanation? Starting from the work implemented by Prof. N. Nunn, this paper is taking in consideration two specific countries: Angola and Namibia. Despite the similar resource endowment and position, they were affected in a drastic different way by the slave phenomenon; a comparison of present economic performances of the two countries will lead to the conclusion that the Trans- Atlantic slave trade did have an impact on the countries involved, and that this impact was negative.