Do the African suppliers of slaves bear as much responsibility for the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as the European traders?
             The Trans-Atlantic slave trade is one of the most heinous of crimes committed against people in history. Many people including women and children were taken away from their homes and families forcefully to tend to the needs of the masters. Who should be blamed for such a terrible act? Many people are quick to place emphasis on the European slave trader's role in slavery because it is convenient to blame them but it must be remembered that African slave traders were just as involved in the capture and selling of slaves.
             African kings, rulers and elders provided the most slaves to the European traders and obtained a good profit from this. There were four types of people that were used as slaves. There were the criminals who were being sold as punishment by chiefs, there were Africans obtained from raids, domestic slaves who were being resold and lastly, prisoners of war. The majority of which were prisoners of war. This set a precedent where kings or chiefs would deliberately go to war with other tribes to keep up with high demand for slaves. Captain John Hall of the British Navy reported "that an appearance of a slave ship at Old Calabar was the signal for the Africans to go upstream in their war canoes and they usually returned two to three weeks later with their canoes full of slaves." The monies that the Africans were receiving were consuming them and this is further substantiated by Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, in his memoirs of 1879 that "when a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chief for them, and tempts him with his wares...Accordingly, he fall upon his neighbours, and a desperate battle ensues...if he prevails, and takes prisoners, he gratifies his avarice by selling them." The African traders mainly, the chiefs and kings had betrayed their people...