Although Africans for hundreds of years had exported their raw materials — ivory, gold, kola nuts — in

exchange for imports starting from salt to overseas metals, the creation of the Atlantic slave change
inside the early 16th century changed the nature of African export manufacturing in fundamental ways.
[1] An increasing number of Ghanaians sought to enhance themselves by means of taking pictures
fellow Africans in warfare and selling them to slave sellers from North America and South America.[1]
The slaves have been transported to the coast and sold thru African traders, using the equal routes and
connections through which gold and ivory had formerly flowed.[1] In return, Africans regularly obtained
guns as fee, which could be used to capture greater slaves and, extra importantly, to advantage and
hold political energy.[1]

An expected ten million Africans, at the least 1/2 one million from the Gold Coast, left the continent on
this manner.[1] Some economists have argued that the slave alternate improved African financial
sources and therefore did no longer necessarily impede development, but others, notably historian
Walter Rodney, have argued that by way of getting rid of the continent's most treasured aid — humans
— the slave exchange robbed Africa of unknown invention, innovation, and production.[1] Rodney
further argues that the slave alternate fueled a procedure of underdevelopment, wherein African
societies came to rely upon the export of sources important to their own financial increase, thereby
precluding nearby improvement of these assets.[1] Although some pupils preserve that the following
monetary history of this area helps Rodney's interpretation, no consensus exists in this point.[1] Indeed,
in latest years, some historians now not handiest have rejected Rodney's interpretation however
additionally have superior the belief that it is the Africans themselves as opposed to an array of external
forces that are in charge for the continent's financial plight.[1]