sudden volleys of gunfire." Moreover, flintlocks loaded with buckshot could fell foes-and potential slaves-without fatal injury, unlike earlier muskets capable of firing only the more lethal single ball.
These cheap weapons made slaving so profitable for West Africans that warfare became a way of life. Moreover, the insatiable demand of new Dutch and English plantations in the Americas for slave labor boosted the price of human exports. In some regions of West Africa, slave prices tripled...