"Sometimes the victorious states forced weaker societies to enter powerful states or forced weaker societies to enter into a tributary arrangement, while crimes, harassments, indebtedness, threats, famine, and hunger often led people to leave their homes and place themselves into voluntary slavery, This also occurred in the west for Europeans going to America called indentured servitude (Bah 75)
" Also it was not rare to see those that committed major crimes, such as murder, lose their freedom and become slaves. .
Slave trade in Africa existed well before the involvement of Europeans. Actually there are many accounts where large numbers of Africans were said to have been enslaved and forced to work in the Gold Coast mines even before European contact. However involvement in intra-African slave trade stared with Portuguese middlemen who first became the first Europeans to get involved in the regional slave trade in Africa. This occurred during 1470s through 1620s. "The exploration of Africa by European countries all started in 1415 when Portuguese captured the fortress of Ceuta from the Moroccans (M. Alpha Bah 71)." What lead to this exploration was the pursuit of the numerous gold mines of Western Africa, to gain control of the gold mines, to find a maritime route to the far east in hopes of taking over Asian trade for spices and cutout the Arabian/Asian middle. "They supplied the labor force need for Akan gold mines with slave from Angola, Congo, Arguin, Benin, and the Grain coast (Bah 75)." African paid Europeans gold in exchange for the slaves they provided. In the case of the Akan gold miners they handled their exchanges with the Portuguese, However later other Europeans, such as the English, Dutch and Danes, all got involved in the trade with the Akan people in exchange for gold. .
The importance of slaves in society could not be undermined in Africa.