What was life like in Africa before slavery ?

Answer 1

It was paradise!!!! for them of course maybe we wouldn't have liked their style of life. People were peaceful and just enjoyed life. They live in a way close to the way Indians lived in America, hunting to survive and dancing and celebrating every night(some of those were rites)

Answer 2

Africa Before Slavery

Answer 3

RE:
What was life like in Africa before slavery ?

Answer 4

For those who would later be en-slaved, or Africa as a continent in general? as a continent in gereral it was very diverse, made up of several nations, and slavery was only a factor in the very eastern coastal nations, not in the North or central,Western or southern. You have to understand that less than .25% of Africans where enslaved, and brought to Norht America, Cenral America, the caribean islands, south american and Northern Europe. slavery was not an American institution in the beginning, it ws startedby the Dutch, people from neatherlands (holland), most where taken to NOrth America and the carribean, but history tends to twist it as being an American idea and only brough to the States, which is very untrue, Horrible as it was, and just plan wrong, the Dutch used tribe against tribe to round up slaves, the Africans who where opposed to each other do have to share in the blame of turning in there enemy tribesman for trinkets and metal wares, it was greed driven on all levels. Slavery had been practice since the beginning of time in all of the Mediterranean nd European countries, Rome and Egypt as well as Greece, where huge into the international slave trade, England was a major source of slaves to Rome, the Nordic nations enslaved other Nordic people as well as English,German and French peoples in constant raids over 100s of years. Africa was little effected overall, the nations where all separate much like European nations, and diverse, the Northern ones where heavily influenced by Europe and Islamic beliefs, and very different from the east coast privative tribes, that where enslaved in the 1500-1800s, all nations have endured horrible slavery from other nations, even primative South Americans way before the Spanish, as well as American indians, before Columbus, enslaved there enemies on a regular basis. one of the worst injustices any people can do on another.

Answer 5

There was great corruption and poverty. This lead to Africans selling their brothers to the Europeans. After slavery was abolished, Lincoln sent as many former slaves who wanted to go back to Africa. The slaves called the land Liberia which means freedom. Within ten years they were again selling their brothers into slavery.

Answer 6

I agree with topgalant, slavery has been going on since the dawn of humanity - and as Africa is the birthplace of humanity then it reasons that a pre-slave africa is just a utopian paradise contrived in the minds of men.

Answer 7

The peoples of West Africa had a rich and varied history and culture long before European slavers arrived. They had a wide variety of political arrangements including kingdoms, city-states and other organisations, each with their own languages and culture.

The empire of Songhai and the kingdoms of Mali, Benin and Kongo were large and powerful with monarchs heading complex political structures governing hundreds of thousands of subjects. In other areas, political systems were smaller and weaker, relying on agreement between people at village level. As in 16th century war-torn Europe, the balance of power between political states and groups was constantly changing.

Art, learning and technology flourished and Africans were especially skilled in subjects like medicine, mathematics and astronomy. As well as domestic goods, they made fine luxury items in bronze, ivory, gold and terracotta for both local use and trade.

For more info check out
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/slavery/abefore.asp

Answer 8

Depends on WHERE in Africa you're talking about, and WHEN as well. There were great civilizations on the Mediterranean Rim, Egypt being the most famous, but the Phoenicians in what is now Libya rivaled the Romans at one time, and there was a great civilization in Ethiopia as well, which proves that blacks were as capable of building great civilizations as anyone else. The rest of the continent was pretty primitive when measured by western standards. I know of no civilization above the level of the central American Indians in sub-Saharan Africa. But who knows what the future holds? There's been very little excavation in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily because white archaeologists didn't expect to find anything there. A great civilization could be buried there just waiting for a latter-day Heinreich Schlieman (who discovered the lost ancient city of Troy) to dig it up. Stranger things have happened, you know?

Answer 9

I don't think there ever WAS a time when slavery didn't exist in Africa. In antiquity, the tribes were ALWAYS making wars or incursions into the areas of other tribes for the express purpose of capturing SLAVES... it was just a part of their culture.

When the white man came along and made deals with the various tribes to buy slaves from them, it was just a normal way of doing business because they had been involved in the slave trade FOR CENTURIES...

Answer 10

I guess you are referring to Sub-Sahara Africa. There were several kingdoms and empires that rose before the Europeans came to the place. The most famous is the Kingdom of Mali, with Timbuktu as the capital.

These civilizations traded with the Arabs and Berbers in the north, and developed a high degree of culture.

Unfortunately, part of their downfall is the constant conflict among themselves. They enslaved the conquered territories and sold them to the Europeans, as their commodity.