By giving a prodigious extension to internecine warfare and investing it with a distinct economic motive, the slave trade strengthened all the instincts of self-preservation among the native communities. Just because every community lived under the perpetual menace of aggression from its neighbour, it became more wary, more intent upon preserving its liberties, more devoted to its land and homesteads, more sturdy in its defence. And the Western Slave trade had another consequence. It increased the strong commercial trend of mind, the love of barter and bargaining, inherent in the West African peoples. For, examined from the standpoint of its role among the West African peoples whom it affected, the Slave trade was not merely a stimulus to war: it was a stimulus to gain, to profit. Innumerable intermediaries participated in the purchase price which the European slaver, installed on his hulk moored beyond the surf-line, or encamped on shore, haggled over with his African agents and their armed followers when they reached, the coast dragging with them their shackled captives. Those captives had passed from hand to hand along many hundreds of miles in the interior, and contractors and sub-contractors had each claimed their share of commission on the human live-stock. The double effect of centuries of this traffic in West Africa tended thus to accentuate the spirit of independence and the commercial spirit of the native peoples.
The purpose of the Arab slaver and conquisitador in Eastern Africa was wholly different. A certain number of captives were, of course, deported to Arabia and the Levant. But the interests of the Oman Arab of Southern Arabia, who founded the Zanzibar Sultanate and extended domination as far inland as the Great Lakes, were primarily in the soil. True, he was a great trader, and the loss of native life involved in his activities was chiefly caused through the terrible mortality among the carriers who transported the ivory he secured from the interior to the coast. He was ruthless in his warfare. But having achieved his intention in subduing the aboriginal population by force of arms, he settled down in the country, founded rich and prosperous settlements, and laid immense tracts under cultivation, through the labour of his defeated enemies. With this end in view, he maintained the peoples he had conquered under his per-
