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British Attitudes Of The Slave Trade In Nigeria And Nigeria

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Both Britain and Nigeria were competition to have a larger empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, Britain's main interest was in trade with India, that then had come to dominate by the end of the 18th century. The British interest in Africa was incidental; ships bound to and from India had to pass along the African coast where they obtained supplies and occasionally became overloaded or shipwrecked. Only a few spots in West Africa, like the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast (modern Nigeria), offered enough profit to make them attractive in their own right, so that by the end of "the Scamble" the British occupied only the Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Nigeria. Naturally, the British also acquired extensive holdings elsewhere in Africa, notably in Egypt, Kenya and South Africa, (Howe 89), but in West Africa, most of the territory went to the French. Most British attitudes about Africa were shaped by their experience with the slave trade. According to The Book of Empire, The British first became involved in the trade in the 16th century and became major players by the 18th century. Majority of the merchant seaman had seen and or owned slaves at some point of time in their career in the late 18th century the abolition movement began to introduce Africans and their land to a wider audience in Great Britain.
Slavery in the Atlantic was always more complex than history books can convey. Most slaves were forced to work as agricultural laborers, working long hours in
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