The Full History of Slavery in Africa Explained

In this episode of The Breakdown, we examine the history of slavery in Africa and how it shaped the modern world. Forms of servitude existed in parts of precolonial Africa and they often followed war, debt, or punishment. As many societies absorbed captives into families and communities, the system changed when outside demand expanded slave trading routes. Trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean, and transatlantic networks turned people into exports. European firearms fueled raids and conflict and the transatlantic slave trade imposed racial chattel slavery at massive scale. It treated Black bodies as property for life with west and Central Africa suffering a deep population loss. Abolition ended legal slavery but not its effects and the structural inequality and global power gaps still reflect that history today.