A Harsh Environment or a Reign of Terror? The Integrative and Disintegrative Effects of the International Slave Trade in Precolonial Africa (1400-1899)
(2025) EKHS22 20251Department of Economic History
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Empirical research shows that precolonial slavery negatively impacts contemporary growth and development in Africa. However, less research focuses on the causes of slavery or how it was sustained during the precolonial period. I investigate the unexplored question of whether export slavery was causal across individual precolonial periods by using slave export data in centennial periods (1400-1899), spatial econometric methods, IV regressions, and a novel rainfall seasonality variable. Rainfall seasonality and other non-institutional factors offer no causal explanation for export slavery. Despite diagnostic limitations in the IV instrument, the findings instead suggest that export slavery was sustained by its own institutional momentum,... (More)
- Empirical research shows that precolonial slavery negatively impacts contemporary growth and development in Africa. However, less research focuses on the causes of slavery or how it was sustained during the precolonial period. I investigate the unexplored question of whether export slavery was causal across individual precolonial periods by using slave export data in centennial periods (1400-1899), spatial econometric methods, IV regressions, and a novel rainfall seasonality variable. Rainfall seasonality and other non-institutional factors offer no causal explanation for export slavery. Despite diagnostic limitations in the IV instrument, the findings instead suggest that export slavery was sustained by its own institutional momentum, even if temporal differences emerge. The causal mechanism runs through conflict. As predatory slave raiding intensified, many groups adopted slavery themselves to either gain influence or as protection against enslavement. Furthermore, early exposure to the international slave trade is associated with the decay of political authority, while in later periods it was partly reconstituted through slaving regimes. Consequently, the relationship between previous and subsequent levels of export slavery became increasingly interlinked over time. In a cruel sense, the international slave trade introduced an economic incentive that both disintegrated the social fabric and political authority of early precolonial Africa but also integrated the newly emerging order into an expansive slavery mode of production. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9225562
- author
- Louw, Louis LU
- supervisor
-
- Igor Martins LU
- organization
- course
- EKHS22 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Precolonial Slavery, Geography, Climate, Rainfall Seasonality, Institutions, Political Decentralization, Spatial Autocorrelation, Instrumental Variables Design
- language
- English
- id
- 9225562
- date added to LUP
- 2026-09-07 13:52:35
- date last changed
- 2026-09-07 13:52:35
@misc{9225562,
abstract = {{Empirical research shows that precolonial slavery negatively impacts contemporary growth and development in Africa. However, less research focuses on the causes of slavery or how it was sustained during the precolonial period. I investigate the unexplored question of whether export slavery was causal across individual precolonial periods by using slave export data in centennial periods (1400-1899), spatial econometric methods, IV regressions, and a novel rainfall seasonality variable. Rainfall seasonality and other non-institutional factors offer no causal explanation for export slavery. Despite diagnostic limitations in the IV instrument, the findings instead suggest that export slavery was sustained by its own institutional momentum, even if temporal differences emerge. The causal mechanism runs through conflict. As predatory slave raiding intensified, many groups adopted slavery themselves to either gain influence or as protection against enslavement. Furthermore, early exposure to the international slave trade is associated with the decay of political authority, while in later periods it was partly reconstituted through slaving regimes. Consequently, the relationship between previous and subsequent levels of export slavery became increasingly interlinked over time. In a cruel sense, the international slave trade introduced an economic incentive that both disintegrated the social fabric and political authority of early precolonial Africa but also integrated the newly emerging order into an expansive slavery mode of production.}},
author = {{Louw, Louis}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{A Harsh Environment or a Reign of Terror? The Integrative and Disintegrative Effects of the International Slave Trade in Precolonial Africa (1400-1899)}},
year = {{2025}},
}