Challenge: a more developed slave coast

No one is saying Africa will supply the entire global demand for these products. Europeans will set up production elsewhere. But without abundant African slave labor the costs will be higher, profits lower. How these producers will manage without African slaves will be interesting but not really Africa's problem.
 
No one is saying Africa will supply the entire global demand for these products. Europeans will set up production elsewhere. But without abundant African slave labor the costs will be higher, profits lower. How these producers will manage without African slaves will be interesting but not really Africa's problem.

How are you keeping them from buying African slaves?

Let's say that these areas produce all the things you named in the first post.

So what?

Again, you haven't changed the demand for slaves at all - and where there's a buyer, there's going to be a seller. Especially if Europeans pay more for slaves than for cotton or coffee.
 
Well this is a chicken or the egg argument, which came first selling slaves or importing goods. In the end it doesn't really matter because slaves for guns is viscous cycle that can be interrupted with alternative local exports.

I wouldn't say the local chiefs has no need for European products. Funny thing about the arms trade is just because you don't want to buy guns doesn't mean your enemies aren't buying them.

It's not going to be interrupted with local exports. Local exports just means the local elites will have more money and buy more Western goods. It wasn't just guns they bought, it was Western luxury goods. The idea that African Kings will go "my desire for luxury goods has now been fulfilled, there's no further need to capture slaves from foreign tribes" is ridiculous.
 
They sold gold (hence the old name of 'Gold Coast' for what's now 'Ghana', and also the name of the golden 'Guinea' coin), and they sold ivory (hence 'Ivory Coast'/'Cote d'Ivoire'), but those trades weren't enough for them.
 
IMO the biggest problem of the Atlantic slave trade was there wasn't a lot of export commodities in the region. The slave trade I think can be curtailed significantly if the people in coastal West Africa had more profitable products for export. Here's a list of economic options I could see.

The problem with all of your suggestions is that the Europeans still have considerable incentive to own the means of production themselves. When faced with the options of 1) owning the various cash crops on island plantations they control, or 2) paying someone else money for them, the Europeans of the 16th to 18th centuries will all choose the first option.

The Africans have no way to export those cash crops themselves. They are completely dependent on Europeans or Arabs showing up and paying for them.

By the time the Africans would be able to open up their own cash crop plantations, the Europeans won't be interested in them because they have their own supply. At best you may have a few secondary and tertiary powers without plantation colonies of their own show up for trade, but this won't do anything for development.
 
Why would the Europeans refuse to buy sugar, cotton and coffee? They whole point of buying slaves was to produce these commodities.

No, the whole point was to CONTROL the production of those commodities for their own internal market. European economic thought during this time period was not based on free trade. It was extremely mercantalist which meant they wanted to keep as much specie within their own controlled customs territory. Controlling their own sources of these cash crops are important so that specie would not leave the country.

Buying sugar, cotton, and coffee would be preferable to not have them at all, but the European countries would all prefer to own the means of production themselves. This is why they all fought over islands in the Caribbean so that each country could produce the cash crops themselves and not rely on another power.
 
No, the whole point was to CONTROL the production of those commodities for their own internal market. European economic thought during this time period was not based on free trade. It was extremely mercantalist which meant they wanted to keep as much specie within their own controlled customs territory. Controlling their own sources of these cash crops are important so that specie would not leave the country.

Buying sugar, cotton, and coffee would be preferable to not have them at all, but the European countries would all prefer to own the means of production themselves. This is why they all fought over islands in the Caribbean so that each country could produce the cash crops themselves and not rely on another power.

still, though, if the Africans had all these highly desirable products for sale, wouldn't Europeans buy them? They still might want to want to set up their own sources of supply, but it's kinda hard to imagine that someone would be offering them for sale and no one would buy them. Of course, this still might not do much to slow down the slave trade, as the Europeans would likely buy up what Africa offered and make their own at the same time, and put even more of these valuable items on the market...
 
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