European merchants had been trading with African communities for many years leading up to the beginning of the slave trade, which began around the year 1400. Slaves were great for western economies as they provided nearly free labor: a valuable input. While European businesses benefitted from this, groundwork of mistrust and ethnic fractionalization was being laid in Africa. Western slave traders employed Africans to hunt down slaves for them. This destroyed social networks since Europeans did not capture slaves themselves; the poaching was done by other African tribes and even by victims’ very neighbors. The effects of this early loss of trust between tribes and individuals can be seen today through weakened ties and strife between nation-states, tribes and ethnicities. This discourages the formation of broad ethnic identities, which are fundamental to establishing larger communities. Consequently, without trust and communication, most African countries have struggled to develop (Nunn, 2009). They lack the strong institutions needed to provide citizens with public goods such as education, infrastructure and health care.

Reference:

Nunn, Nathan, and Leonard Wantchekon. The slave trade and the origins of mistrust in Africa. No. w14783. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009.