Atlantic Africa In The 19th Century

Atlantic Africa experienced significant changes in the nineteenth through twentieth centuries that occurred largely because of outside actors. The trans-Atlantic slave trade created a complicated environment in Atlantic Africa because it dominated trade on the coast, created deep class divisions, and “disrupted and distorted” interior progress. Those relationships became increasingly complex following the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and during the Scramble for Africa and the decolonization movement. The abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade was undoubtedly one of the most significant developments in Atlantic Africa during the 19th century because it put an end to the forced migration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic
Ocean. Kevin Shillington outlines the factors that led to abolition in History of Africa. The first and most important motivating factor he identifies was that slavery and the slave trade was becoming less profitable. The sugar market was becoming saturated due to innovations in machinery and overproduction by new plantations, and former plantation investors in the slave trade “found it more profitable to invest in new manufacturing industries at home.”