en Dutch purchasers focused in Senegambia, Kongo, Angola, and Sierra Leone. Africans' willingness to participate in the export of slaves varied. The kingdom of Benin, for example, eventually withdrew from the slave trade, but in Kongo and Senegambia those willing to profit from capture and export of slaves became dominant. These and then other African societies developed the means to capture, feed, finance, and transport captives for sale to European buyers.
             As the trade expanded, Europeans developed a preference for males and were willing to pay more for them. Africans, in contrast, paid higher prices for female slaves, who were preferred because they could be used as domestic and agricultural laborers, as concubines,
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