Africans were enslaved because they were outside Europe’s world-economy

Evidence

“But why Africans as the new slaves? Because of exhaustion of the supply of laborers indigenous to the region of the plantations, because Europe needed a source of labor from a reasonably well-populated region that was accessible and relatively near the region of usage. But it had to be from a region that was outside its world-economy so that Europe could feel unconcerned about the economic consequences for the breeding region of wide-scale removal of manpower as slaves. Western Africa filled the bill best.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1909

“But why Africans as the new slaves? Because of exhaustion of the supply of laborers indigenous to the region of the plantations, because Europe needed a source of labor from a reasonably well-populated region that was accessible and relatively near the region of usage. But it had to be from a region that was outside its world-economy so that Europe could feel unconcerned about the economic consequences for the breeding region of wide-scale removal of manpower as slaves. Western Africa filled the bill best.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1909

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘outside the world-economy’ criterion — entire regions could be drained of people without Europe feeling accountability — is a striking structural explanation worth its own essay.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s rise-of-the-tradition arc: this is the economic precondition that Black radicalism later arose against.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1909