>The case of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is a case in
>point - these East African countries were
>colonized ca, 15th century by Arabs and became a
>major source of slave trade which ended in the 19th
>century with European colonization.
The record here is overwhelmingly against you. While the Europeans may or may not have been more innately vicous than local elites or rival non-European exploiters, their maraudings coincided w/ the age of global imperialism and the rise of plantation labor. The sheer numbers of persons forcefully relocated and their ultimate destinations show this.
I read once that the first slaves to pass through the great slaving ports on the Gold Coast were actually travelling in-bound. The Asante there were experiencing one of your fantastic "net benefit effects" of European colonialism.
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