Most of scolars state that the consequences of the slave trade are still felt in today’s entire world. It is without any doubt that the arrival of Europeans on the West African Coast contributed in a continuous process of exploitation of Africa’s people resources, labor, and commodities. Furthermore, this commercial exploitation influenced Africa politically, economically, and religiously. The Atlantic slave trade has seriously retarted Africa’s economy development. In matter of fact, Europeans benefited from this trade, because it allowed them to feed their Industrial Revolution to the detriment of Africa’s enslaved people and its resources, which fell further and further behind the European’s economic progress.The triangular trade radically impacted and prevented most of the African’s continent potential to develop economically and politically. The slave trade greatly debilitated the whole economy of Africa and its negative long-term effect still shown on economic performance which lost approximately more than twelve million Africans kidnapped and sold to the slavers. The slave trade has badly affected the political landscape of the African continent between rival rulers and contribute to destroy previous empires.
It is definitely impossible to deny that Africa supplied the largest number of slaves used as a source to promote both European and American’s economy. We all knew that during more than four centuries, Africans males and females were snatched from their homes and exported into the new world where they were working as slaves in colonizer’s mines and plantations. They served as a bedstone to the tremendous wealth that Europeans and Americans are still enjoying. Therefore, it is very clear that black slaves played a crucial role in the economic development of the Americas as a labor supply. Most fundamentally, it produced deep social divides between the rich white and poor black communities, the consequences of which still haunt American societies now, many years after emancipation and the abolition.
