The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Economic Consequences in South Africa

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The slave trade undoubtedly had an impact on the population growth, but to what extent is hard to say (another word??) due to uncertain numbers and information. The information about the size of population before the slave trades is so little, which makes it difficult to state exact conclusions. However, according to Peter Manning’s calculations, the population in Africa was only half of what it could have been by 1850[8]. It is obvious that the demand of enslaved Africans changed the allocation of African resources and labor. Considering the number of people who were shipped away, and the number of people who got killed in the process of slave-gathering operations, valuable workforce got lost. Young, strong healthy men were preferable as slaves, in fact approximately 2/3 of the slaves were males[9], which led to parts of the strongest workforce of Africa were taken away. Also, this affected the female/male ratio. Due to different divisions of labor between sexes in the different African societies, it is difficult to state how the changed sex ratio affected the total output of farms and local industry. However, it is assumable that it did affect some of the West African societies.

Moreover, it is difficult to say if the African economy would have achieved significant growth and development if the enslaved Africans had not been shipped away during the slave trade. Nonetheless, when the economy expanded and had a rapid growth during late 19th and early 20th century there was labor shortage in parts of West Africa which might have restricted the speed of the economic growth. This could probably to some extent have been avoided if it was not for the slave trade and the decrease in population growth.

No one wants to be held responsible for the horrible trade system that existed for almost 400 years, and even worse, be held for having benefited from it. It is generally believed that slave trade destroyed the economic development of Africa, and that foreign import led to decline of local industries. This might not be the full story. African merchandisers of agricultural produce, gold, metals and slaves gained from foreign trade. Parts of this profit was spent on merchandise such as salt, cloth, salt and hardware provided to African people in certain “states”/areas. The slave trade also caused a slight boost in the farmer’s economy who had the ability to supply food produce to towns and slave ships[10].

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