Yep, their a lot of guilty folks in this violation, but someone also was selling on the Africa side. I often wonder if the bad shape and tragedy that has visited Africa is the result.
Sadly, this is still current events and not history.
The Europeans deserve 100% of the blame for the slave trade.
I grew up learning that they traded manufactured goods (and, according to Roots and 1776, rum) to certain kings who were now able to gain more power by using European-made weapons to expand their territory and capture more prisoners. This led to a sharp increase in warfare as militaries could plunder not just wealth found in cities but bodies of civilians in villages.
Can you link to a source on your account?
This is not to say that the Atlantic slave trade wasn't incredibly destructive, unusually pervasive and far reaching, but the idea that the fault was entirely with the West is a ridiculous denial of the agency of every African individual and political unit that took part in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa
Is this bit true? I thought they also traded wood to the Arabian peninsula for instance. Granted, my knowledge here is coming from an episode of CrashCourse[1] and my knowledge of pre-colonial Africa is woeful.