Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Haywood
But without Atlantic slave trade, African states don't organize around wars for captives as much. That would have had a big impact.
With no slave trade, West African States and Swahili Coast probably remain more active partners in their respective trade networks, but the long-term effects are difficult to speculate on.
Not to mention, Europeans would not have had the advantage of cheap labor for sugar/coffee/indigo/rice/tobacco/cotton plantations in the Americas, which means economic development probably goes more slowly there--it's not to say the Atlantic economy doesn't develop, but it probably skews so many variables that the effects by the 19th century look even more different than we can imagine.
"Best" case scenario: greater market development in a non-Eurocentric Atlantic to the advantage of all parties.
"Worst" case scenario: markets stall, meaning there's no Enlightenment, no Industrial Revolution, no modernity as we understand it, at least not at the same time or in the same fashion.