"Sale of slaves was unders the control of African states and elites"

["Ricardo Duchesne" <rduchesn@xxxxxxxx>]

Sorry, I don't like to take prisoners when in a good mood.

The left does not need a mythical (anti-Marxist) view about the
"bad" Europeans and the "good" Africans:

"My examination of the military and political relations between
Africans and Europeans concludes that Africans controlled the
nature of their interactions with Europe. Europeans did not possess
the military power to force Africans to participate in any type of
trade in which their leaders did not wish to engage. Therefore all
African trade with the Atlantic, including the slave trade, *had to be
voluntary*. Finally, a careful look at the slave trade and the process
of acquisition of slaves argues that slaves *had long been used in
African societies*, that African political systems placed great
importance on the legal relationships of slavery for political
purposes, and that relatively large numbers of people were likely to
be slaves at any one time. Because so much of the process of
acquisition, transfer, and sale of slaves was under the control of
African states and elites, they were able to protect themselves
from the demographic impact and transfer the considerable social
dislocations to poorer members of their own societies"

John Thornton in *Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic
World, 1400-1640*