The Kingdom of Dahomey was a West African kingdom located in present-day Benin. It became a major source of enslaved persons for the Atlantic slave trade, raiding nearby settlements for captives. In the 1720s, King Agaja expanded Dahomey by taking over Allada in 1724 and Whydah in 1727, giving Dahomey control over key coastal slave ports such as Porto Novo and Ouidah.

With those coastal cities in its hands, Dahomey became known as a major market for slave exports and profited heavily from the trade. It raised slave prices, which attracted the attention of the more powerful Oyo Empire. Dahomey was defeated in the 1740s and became tributary to Oyo for roughly 100 years. Its participation in the Atlantic trade continued until 1852, when Britain—having long been one of the major customers of that very trade—forced Dahomey to end it.

The monarchy’s dependence on the trade appears starkly in a reported statement by King Gezo in the 1840s:

“The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…”

The Alawite Dynasty in Morocco took part in the Trans-Saharan slave trade. Major slave markets existed in Tangiers, Marrakesh, and Fez, where enslaved people were sold openly. During expansion wars, the Alawite state captured Africans and sold many of them into wider Middle Eastern slave systems. Morocco also functioned as a major centre of the Arab slave trade. Research published in the book Black Morocco by academic Chouki El Hamel suggests the trade finally ended in 1950.

The legal framework under Islamic law differed from the slavery systems that developed in the Americas. Slave women who bore children to their masters could gain freedom with their children, and those children could inherit property and receive education. That meant some sultans, judges, and prominent officials had slave ancestry. This was very different from the perpetual hereditary slavery that hardened in North America, where the son of a free man and an enslaved woman could remain enslaved.

Morocco also sourced captives from Europe through the activities of Barbary corsairs, who captured and enslaved Europeans including Spaniards, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Greeks, Portuguese, Italians, Irish, Scandinavians, Russians, Georgians, and others travelling in inadequately armed ships. The largest group of Europeans enslaved by Moroccans were the Spanish.

The Regency of Algiers, which existed from 1518 to 1830 as part of the Ottoman Empire, was a major player in slave trading. According to published research, it enslaved both Africans and Europeans, often in connection with the activities of Barbary pirates. Large slave markets operated in the region, with captives sold through Trans-Saharan routes as well as obtained through raiding, warfare, and trade.

The system lasted until 1830, when conflict with France contributed to the end of Ottoman rule in Algeria.

Egypt was a major player in the Trans-Saharan and later wider slave trade systems. The text dates a key turning point to 641 AD, with the Muslim conquest of Egypt by the Rashidun Caliphate, after which trade routes linking Egypt to Mecca and the Middle East became more firmly established.

Later, Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s. Millions of enslaved persons were taken from Egypt to Asia and that the trade ended in the 1900s after British pressure intensified when Egypt defaulted on its debts. Because of its long history in these systems, Egypt is included here as one of the African polities deeply implicated in slave trading routes.

The Kanem Bornu Empire, based across parts of present-day Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria, lasted from around 700 to 1900 AD. By around 900 AD, enslaved persons had become a principal commodity, and by the end of the 15th century roughly 5,000 slaves were traded annually according to research.

Initially, enslaved people were sold through the Trans-Saharan trade. Later, the empire also became implicated in the Transatlantic trade. Around two million slaves walked through the slave route in their empire. Kanem Bornu raided non-Muslim neighbouring kingdoms for captives, especially in times of economic need. Eventually, the empire itself was invaded, and its role in the trade ended.

The Kingdom of Allada, located in southern Benin, reached the peak of its power in the 16th century and became a centre of the Atlantic slave trade. It supplied captives through raids and attacks on neighbouring polities, then sold them onward to European slave traders bound for the Americas.

As a coastal kingdom, Allada controlled a major Atlantic slave port. Even after the kingdom itself declined, the coast remained significant in the wider trade. In 1724, Dahomey invaded Allada, and many of Allada’s own people were then sold into slavery—an especially grim reminder that systems of predation can consume those who participate in them.

The Aro Confederacy was a political union in present-day south-eastern Nigeria. According published research, the Aro were among the leading exporters of slaves to Europe and the Americas from 1690 to 1902, with estimates suggesting around 850,000 slaves were exported overseas.

Once the Aro gained the upper hand in the slave trade, they launched wars and raids to capture more captives. The confederacy drew cohesion from the Chukwu oracle of Aro, which helped unify the region into a large trading network. This made the Aro an especially important case in the history of internal West African slave-trading structures linked to Atlantic demand.

The Ashanti Empire, based in present-day Ghana, was formed in 1700 and participated in the slave trade until the 19th century. According to research, its economy rested heavily on the trade in gold and slaves.

Its army often functioned as an instrument for capturing people in war. Those captives could be kept within the empire as enslaved labourers or exported across the Atlantic to the Americas. The Ashanti case therefore sits within the broader history of states that combined warfare, commerce, and human trafficking in ways shaped by Atlantic demand.

The Songhai Empire, one of the largest states in African history, was based in western Africa. Slave trading formed a substantial part of the empire’s economy. According to published research, slaves were used internally to transport goods, and literate enslaved people could sometimes rise to administrative roles, though many were also exported in the Transatlantic trade through European buyers.

Captives were often procured through raids and wars with neighbouring peoples, especially the Kru and Baga. Songhai therefore illustrates how internal and external uses of slavery could exist side by side inside a major precolonial state.

The Mali Empire, based in present-day Mali from roughly 1235 to 1670 AD, was deeply engaged in trade—including trade in enslaved people through the Trans-Saharan route. Slave labour was common, and captives were also exported. According to research, thousands were enslaved in raids and wars waged by the empire over time.

Slavery was later abolished under French colonial rule, though forms of descent-based slavery have persisted in parts of northern Mali. This reminds us that the afterlives of slavery are often stubborn and do not disappear the moment the law changes.