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According to
research, about 24 million Africans were taken by force as slaves
from the West Africa alone. Most popular are the Benin rulers who sold
slaves to the Portuguese and who used slaves first on Sao Tome,
and then on the plantations in Brazil, which was then a colony of
Portugal. On the East Coast, the slave trade was
developed by the Arabs who controlled the the Zanzibar slave market.
Slaves were gotten generally from wars
and raiding. Wars between states and kingdoms such as Oyo and other
Yoruba Kingdoms, became continuous during the 18th and 19th
centuries. This led to a successful slave trade in ports like
Whydah, Badagry, Lagos, Bonny, Old and New Calabar, while slave trade
was striving, peace and normal life was disrupted in Africa.
Slave
Trade Abolition (1809)
Great Britain and the United
States abolished the slave trade in 1807, effective January 1st
1808.
In 1807 it became illegal for British people to trade in slaves.
Between 1818 and 1825 similar laws were passed in France, Portugal,
Spain and Brazil. For
further reading, the following references are useful:
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