Step 4: Put It All Together

Now, take a step back and try to explain the big picture. Remember to use specific examples from the chapter in your answers.

Click here to download the exercise for Step 4 in MS Word.

WEST AFRICA
  • What was the relationship between stateless societies and the dominant states of West Africa?
  • How did the slave trade shape marriage patterns and family structure in West Africa?
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EAST AFRICA
  • What was the legacy for Ethiopia of early modern conflicts among Muslims, Coptic Christians, and Roman Catholics?
  • Why was the arrival of the Portuguese an economic disaster for East Africa?
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THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE
  • What economic forces, both inside Africa and in the larger Atlantic world, contributed to the growth of the transatlantic slave trade?
  • How and why did enslavement in the Americas become exclusively African?
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LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD
  • How did the transatlantic slave trade build on earlier African labor practices and commercial connections? How were older patterns of trade and exchange disrupted by the demand for African slaves in the Americas?
  • What connections can you make between the colonization and exploitation of Africa by industrialized nations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the transatlantic slave trade?
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