Walter Rodney refers to the West African coastal communities who cooperated with Europeans during the slave

trade as "Local Mulatto mercenaries" who came to prominence as a consequence of the necessity to sell their
fellow community members as slaves. The Europeans duped the mercenaries and lavished them with gifts in
exchange for their assistance in obtaining additional slaves for commerce. The desire for power and property
drove these individuals to wage war and capture their fellow Africans in quest of slaves to be swapped for other
European commodities such as weaponry. This launched the slave trade, which resulted in the suffering of
Africans and the demise of kingdoms such as Kongo-Angola and the Yoruba. The tiny size of West African
communities rendered them more susceptible to slave raiders since they could not defend themselves against
mercenaries who had the capacity to assemble able-bodied men as well as heavy armaments such as rifles.