Key learning points

1. Gold and the wealth of West African kingdoms brought the Europeans to West Africa.
2. Power in West Africa became concentrated in smaller kingdoms who were able to trade with Europeans.
3. The growth of Portuguese trade in the Sahel led to collapse of some African kingdoms, but also to the growth of others.
4. Europeans soon started selling enslaved people in the Americas to make more profit.

Keywords

• Enslaved people - enslaved people are people who have been forced to work without pay, lose their freedom and become the property of another person

• Indentured labour - indentured labour is a system where someone is made to work without pay for a set period of time

• Chattel slavery - chattel slavery is when people become legal property and cannot be freed without the permission of their slaveholder

• Slaveholder - a slaveholder is someone who owned enslaved people

Common misconception