The fifteenth-century voyages of Portuguese mariners eager to identify and exploit new trade opportunities ushered in an era of violence, exploitation, and slavery on the African continent. However, Africa’s story during these four centuries was not simply one of involuntary participation in a European-dominated system of colonization and enslavement. For centuries, diverse African states had played an important role in global trade, and foreign and indigenous influences combined to produce powerful and enduring cultures. Neither was slavery new to African culture. However, the traditional African idea of slavery was transformed by the dehumanizing profit motive of European capitalism and plantation economies. Many coastal societies facilitated the massive transatlantic slave trade by capturing people from the African interior and delivering them to European slave ships. The documents in this chapter depict both continuity and transformation in African society during this period of European incursion.