Notes

1. The Portuguese established trading posts/forts along the coast. The forts were with the blessing of local tribal chiefs. Once established, the traders would venture further inland in search of gold and silver. These traders were followed by missionaries. This pattern was followed along the entire western coast. The Africans viewed the Portuguese with curiosity, and tried to fit them into their natural world. Whereas the Portuguese saw them as savages that needed to be converted. Portuguese ships first arrived on the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, and before that they had established factories all along the coast of Africa. They were not strong enough to enforce their will, and were there with consent form the African leaders who benefited from Europeans commerce. They traded ivory, pepper, animal skins, and gold.

2. Between 1450 and 1850, it is estimated that 12 million Africans were shipped across the
Atlantic; about 10 or 11 million arrived alive. It is estimated that another 4 million died in the initial raiding or march to the coast. The volume of the trade increased from the 16th to the 18th centuries, with 80 percent of the total coming in the latter centuries. Brazil received more than 40 percent of all slaves reaching the Americas. The continued high volume was necessary because of high slave mortality and low fertility.

3. The Saharan slave trade to the Islamic world carried mostly women for sexual and domestic employment. The Atlantic trade concentrated on young men fit for hard labor in the Americas. African societies who sold slaves might keep women and children for their own uses. All three had a demographic effect on the region. However, the Atlantic trade had the most significant demographic effect on parts of western and central Africa; the population there in 1850 might have been one-half of what it would have been without the trade. The women and children not exported skewed the balance of the sexes in African-enslaving societies.

4. It has been widely thought that the profitability of the slave trade was quite high. However, research indicates that the profitability was no more or less than other commercial endeavors for that period. The argument is furthered skewed by the fact that all parts of the trade routes contributed and therefore had an impact on profitability.

5. The slave trade and the accompanying byproducts of weapons directly helped to solidify state formation. Along the coast where contact with Europeans was commonplace, the states were small and unstable, while the farther away from the coast, the states tended to yield more influence. Because of the high demands of the transatlantic slave trade, African coastal nations warred against nations on the interior for the sake of capturing humans. Over time, this devastated much of Africa, weakening once-wealthy nations and plunging the entire continent into easily exploited chaos.