Why didn't an arms race happen in West Africa during the transatlantic slave trade same as it did in Japan during the sengoku jidai era?

[Kanfari]

I do not believe i have to explain the gun-slave model to anyone who's a member of this forum but for the sake of clarity i will do it in a needlessly supersimplified way (bit of a contradiction i know).

King need gun and merchant need slave - King go war and get slave - Merchant sell king gun for slave - King need more gun because enemies plenty who also have gun - King do more war to get more slave to buy more gun.

If you were able to make sense of that incoherent thought box you just read then you might come to the conclusion that there was an arms race in Africa during the transatlantic slave trade, or atleast in the places that were trading slaves. That isn't what im talking about when i say arms race.

What I mean by "arms race" is the development of weapons technology amongst African polities during the period i'm talking about. Its good and well to buy more guns than the other guy has but the problem is you're still beholden to the traders who sold you those guns and loyalty is not a thing when dealing with money. The same guy who sold you weapons today would do the same for your mortal enemy if he offered a larger amount of cash. You would do better to develop your own guns.

Setting up an arms industry is also most needed when you consider the fact that all guns sold to African kingdoms were of subpar quality, and they/we knew it too.

So with all of the above, why did an arms race not take place in West Africa during the Transatlantic slave trade with all the wars going on the same way it did in sengoku jidai era Japan where there was concentrated effort towards building an arms industry?

I don't know anyone on here who specifically posts about Japanese history and would know enough to correct me if my assumptions about the Japanese arms industry are wrong but i do know two posters with sufficient knowledge in African history to answer my question so ill tag them.

@Sundiata1 & @Ighayere

 

[RandomRodent]

Was not the difference between Japan and West Africa more the case of the former could not obtain the arms it desired in the numbers it wished while the latter was beset by a plague of muskets?

When the Europeans, primarily the Portuguese and Dutch I believe, first contacted Japan they were less industrially advanced and in addition at the end of a very long supply line. By contrast Birmingham alone was manufacturing 100,000 trade muskets for the slave trade a year soon after the American War of Independence. I am pretty sure there were local gunsmiths but the issue I feel was the super abundance of firearms, West Africa's problem was it's arms race and that arms race was fuelled by access to European manufactures. Japan by contrast locked in internal warfare had a demand for weapons that could not be met by the few ships arriving each year and would have likely taxed the European gunmakers already stretched by their own local demand. Thus the Japanese manufactured numerous indigenous firearms as their own gunsmithing had time to mature.

By the way I realise writing this response I know far too little about the political/military interactions both within and between the various West African states prior to the Atlantic slave trade era to assess whether the demand was driven by existing conflict or supply created the opportunity for wars of conquest and or rebellions by ambitious princes, hopefully those more expert can enlighten me.

 

[Kongo1]

It seems like some states in West Africa did try to develop or improve their guns or even develop cannons. The Sayfawa rulers of Borno, for instance, were said to have employed Frenchmen to build cannons. Our source for this information was a Borno subject who definitely exaggerated a few things to Ulrich Seetzen, but Seetzen found confirmation of Borno's use of cannons from a Bagirmi native he met in Egypt. There's evidence that some of the Hausa states were manufacturing their own guns, too. But the flood of European imports may have discouraged some societies from actively trying to develop or improve their capacity to produce them.

 

[Larrey]

The historical term for it is "gunpowder" empires, and some version of it turned up on all continents in the 16th and 17th cs. And the Japanese never quite experienced the European demand for labor to ship to the new world that west Africa got hit by.

There is a time aspect to it. It took some time for chattel slavery in the New World to become such a big feature it created an entire economic system in Africa to supply it. In the 16th c., when the Japanese at least could have gotten drawn into something like that, it wasn't yet such a massive feature. It began back then, but at first the Europeans were trying to make do with the native Americans, and only when they started to "run out" did Africa become such a crucial alternative source of labor, and then slavery picked up massively there in the 17th c.

Might Japanese have been enslaved like that? Sure, why not, if Japan had turned out to be a good source of slaves for Portugese slave traders. The did try it. They were shipping Japanese slaves out of Japan in the period between first turning up in Japan in 1543 to 1587, when the newly established ruler of the by then unified Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, outlawed the Portugese slave trade (and then abolished traditional slavery in Japan altogether in 1590). Hideyoshi also demanded the Portugese release all enslaved Japanese, including promising to actively buy back all already enslaved Japanese from the Americas. This trade in Japanese slaves was one of the things that also led to the decision to outlaw Christianity and missionary work in Japan, eventually kicking the Portugese out, restricting access and eventually making trade with Japan a highly controlled Dutch monopoly.

Source: Portugal and the Japanese Slave Trade – Teaching Medieval Slavery and Captivity

 

[Ighayere]

I do not believe i have to explain the gun-slave model to anyone who's a member of this forum but for the sake of clarity i will do it in a needlessly supersimplified way (bit of a contradiction i know).

King need gun and merchant need slave - King go war and get slave - Merchant sell king gun for slave - King need more gun because enemies plenty who also have gun - King do more war to get more slave to buy more gun.

If you were able to make sense of that incoherent thought box you just read then you might come to the conclusion that there was an arms race in Africa during the transatlantic slave trade, or atleast in the places that were trading slaves. That isn't what im talking about when i say arms race.

What I mean by "arms race" is the development of weapons technology amongst African polities during the period i'm talking about. Its good and well to buy more guns than the other guy has but the problem is you're still beholden to the traders who sold you those guns and loyalty is not a thing when dealing with money. The same guy who sold you weapons today would do the same for your mortal enemy if he offered a larger amount of cash. You would do better to develop your own guns.

Setting up an arms industry is also most needed when you consider the fact that all guns sold to African kingdoms were of subpar quality, and they/we knew it too.

So with all of the above, why did an arms race not take place in West Africa during the Transatlantic slave trade with all the wars going on the same way it did in sengoku jidai era Japan where there was concentrated effort towards building an arms industry?

I don't know anyone on here who specifically posts about Japanese history and would know enough to correct me if my assumptions about the Japanese arms industry are wrong but i do know two posters with sufficient knowledge in African history to answer my question so ill tag them.

@Sundiata1 & @Ighayere

Well as far as I can tell some west African states did in fact build an arms industry for the manufacture of guns and cannon, so I think that the opening question of the thread is based on something of an incorrect premise to begin with.

The Japanese developed an arms industry, and some African states developed an arms industry. However European improvements to firearms left both the Japanese and those Africans that had an arms industry in the dust by the mid-19th century.

Japanese weapons, as at the time that the Americans forced them to open up more to the outside world in the mid-19th century, were well behind those of the West, so I don't see so much distinctiveness in the fact that Japan developed an arms industry if your question is simply about whether they developed an industry that could keep up with the innovations in weaponry occurring among the Western countries. They did not, and neither did any west Africans.

European & American improvements in weapons technology left both the Japanese and west Africans behind the West; it is merely the case that the Western powers of the time (19th century) decided not to attack Japan (or alternatively, that Japan acquiesced to Western demands to avoid a potential conflict) the way they did many other places.

I don't know if there is some more specific difference between Japan and west African states with regard to the manufacture of firearms that you would like to highlight however.

 

[Tulius]

Might Japanese have been enslaved like that? Sure, why not, if Japan had turned out to be a good source of slaves for Portugese slave traders. The did try it. They were shipping Japanese slaves out of Japan in the period between first turning up in Japan in 1543 to 1587, when the newly established ruler of the by then unified Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, outlawed the Portugese slave trade (and then abolished traditional slavery in Japan altogether in 1590). Hideyoshi also demanded the Portugese release all enslaved Japanese, including promising to actively buy back all already enslaved Japanese from the Americas. This trade in Japanese slaves was one of the things that also led to the decision to outlaw Christianity and missionary work in Japan, eventually kicking the Portugese out, restricting access and eventually making trade with Japan a highly controlled Dutch monopoly.

Good post, but we should note that the Japanese (and Chinese) slave marked couldn’t compete with the African one, due the proximity of Africa with America, and other factors, the Africans were much cheaper. But it is good to recall that in the initial period of the Age of Sail the Africans were far from the only ones to be enslaved. The institution of slavery was worldwide. So, in that area (China/Japan), the preference went mostly to female slaves with high prices.

 

[Sundiata1]

5 responses in this thread so far and I agree with all of them.

It was just a volume thing. European guns were mass produced on a scale no African state could possibly match. They were undoubtedly much cheaper than locally produced firearms, which didn't necessarily live up to the same quality. It's true that most European imports were actually of low quality, but I need to stress very strongly that this was not exclusively the case. Multiple precolonial African states like Abyssinia, Wassoulou, Dahomey, Imerina and I presume others were in fact able to acquire sizeable numbers of high quality European rifles that matched what the Europeans were using (I'm talking about rifled repeaters). Just too little too late for all but the Abyssinians, who very consciously played out a number of competing European powers against each other.

Sometimes I even suspect Europeans of deliberately flooding African markets with guns to pre-empt a large scale gun industry from developing, to maintain their near monopoly on the trade. Looking back from 2021, of course, it seem logical to us that African states should have focused harder on developing large scale local gun industries, but hindsight is 20/20, and frankly it would not have made any difference. Lack of guns was not our problem when attempting to fight off colonial expansion... The reasons behind the inability of precolonial African states to maintain their sovereignty, are way more complex. We could have had the exact same number and quality of guns and we still would have lost. Many African traditional states were completely collapsing by the late 19th century. It had much more to do with trade and the economy than military technology. More guns of higher quality would in some cases have just led to even more division and decentralization, actually making us even weaker... Dahomey and some of the Niger Delta chiefs already had machine guns... Didn't help them one bit...

 

[Ighayere]

The reasons behind the inability of precolonial African states to maintain their sovereignty, are way more complex. We could have had the exact same number and quality of guns and we still would have lost. Many African traditional states were completely collapsing by the late 19th century. It had much more to do with trade and the economy than military technology. More guns of higher quality would in some cases have just led to even more division and decentralization, actually making us even weaker... Dahomey and some of the Niger Delta chiefs already had machine guns... Didn't help them one bit...

Could you elaborate on this part a bit when you have time? I think there was a pretty stark difference in firepower between the weapons used by the invading European armies and many of the various African states that they faced. I agree that it is a more complex issue than simply "lack of guns" or "lack of firepower" but I think the difference in firepower and quality of weapons used was still quite significant in many cases.

I also don’t know that the issue is that “many" African traditional states were completely collapsing by the late 19th century. Maybe a few were collapsing, but even in most of those cases there were some other, newer states that were replacing those states as powers in their respective regions.

Only a few of the Niger Delta leaders (such as Nana of Ebrohimi) had acquired one or two machine guns but I don't know of any evidence that any machine guns were actually used in wars of resistance. I don't think Dahomey actually used the machine gun they had acquired either in the conflicts with the French though I could be remembering that incorrectly.

 

[Sundiata1]

Could you elaborate on this part a bit when you have time?

Only a few of the Niger Delta leaders (such as Nana of Ebrohimi) had acquired one or two machine guns but I don't know of any evidence that any machine guns were actually used in wars of resistance. I don't think Dahomey actually used the machine gun they had acquired either in the conflicts with the French though I could be remembering that incorrectly.

You just answered your own question there. Even with possession of high calibre weaponry, they scarcely knew how to use it. Apparently they did not know how to use them effectively at all...

I agree that it is a more complex issue than simply "lack of guns" or "lack of firepower" but I think the difference in firepower and quality of weapons used was still quite significant in many cases.

Yes, that's what I wrote myself as well when I said "It's true that most European imports were actually of low quality". I'm pointing to examples of states that had state of the art weaponry and still got trashed. Imerina is one... They had extensive artillery parks (including modern breechloading cannons from what I can tell), bolt action repeating rifles, even a semblance of modern European military doctrine, and they outnumbered the French almost 5 to one... Still, they were no competition for the French...

It's not just about guns or their quality. It's much more about military doctrine. No African state that I'm aware of managed to use European weapons to the full potential that Europeans were using them. They could not possibly have done that because they did not have the same understanding of those weapons or the same history and experience with them. There are plenty of references to African gunmen from various parts of the continent who didn't even know how to properly sight-in their guns. Many did not know how to aim properly. Even firing from the hip was a disturbingly common practice. Even looking away while firing because they were scared of the sparks! Deliberately used low quality powder to make it last longer (that's a huge no-no in every circumstance). Even using stones as ammunition. I remember reading one British report about a battle with Ashanti, and one of the British officers got shot in the head! Shrugged it off, and continued fighting. That's not possible, if it were not for the low quality powder and stones they used as ammunition.

The point is easily proven by looking at the Abyssinians. Hands down, by far the most successful resistance to European military expansion. They outnumbered the Italians at Adwa almost 10 to 1, and very seriously outgunned them as well (both in number and quality of weapons!) and they still almost lost! Late 19th century European military doctrine and what Africans made of it are two different calibre's of things...

Writing about Liberia, 1820’s J. Ashmun says: “None of the kings of this part of the coast are without cannon. But to load a great gun is with them the business of half an hour, and they were seriously disposed to attribute to sorcery the art of charging and firing these destructive machines from 4 to 6 times in the minute.” There is an absolutely astonishing difference in the rate of fire here. Incomparable... Even when using more believable rate of fire of once to twice a minute for European crews, Europeans could fire at a rate of 30 times faster or more. Even when Africans were in possession of cannons, there was no hope for them to compete with European artillery crews in all but the most exceptional cases. How could they possible compete? Did Africans even have field manuals with range tables? Did they study trigonometry, produce accurate maps with grid coordinated, or understand triangulation, in order to fire accurately? Then how is there even any competition?

European armies of the late 19th century were often trained in military academies. Most African armies were not, and the few that did receive formal training did not receive training of the same quality. Frankly, it was an almost hopeless game of catch-up...

 

[Michele A]

Who said that no arms race took place? You can go about an arms race by purchasing better and cheaper armaments abroad, instead of building costlier and worse armaments on the spot.

 

[GIJoe]

It's worth noting as well that, unlike Japan, West Africans could reach out to and, trade with, Islamic states when they needed to. That meant that their access to Firearms could never be completely cut off just because relations with European powers failed. It might seem insignificant but, that is an important "security blanket" if you will that could contribute to complacency.

Despite that, as others pointed out, West Africa did develop an arms industry of sorts.

 

[Sundiata1]

It's worth noting as well that, unlike Japan, West Africans could reach out to and, trade with, Islamic states when they needed to. That meant that their access to Firearms could never be completely cut off just because relations with European powers failed. It might seem insignificant but, that is an important "security blanket" if you will that could contribute to complacency.

I recently remarked somewhere else that the history of Kabyle muskets in West African is understudied...

 

[GIJoe]

I recently remarked somewhere else that the history of Kabyle muskets in West African is understudied...

You have a valid point. It's worth acknowledging that Kayble muskets seem to have been as good as anything anyone else was producing.

 

[Naomasa298]

It's worth noting that Japanese gun development largely came to an end by the early 17th century, because the age of warfare in Japan ended. While they did have access to more advanced weaponry through their Dutch contacts at Dejima, none of the advances were adopted by Japanese gunsmiths.

Also, most of the artillery pieces used during the Sengoku were imports - the cannons used by Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Siege of Osaka campaign came off European ships (off the top of my head, I don't recall whether they were Dutch or Portuguese).

 

[Simon Girty]

Many African nations also had a different worldview regarding fighting. Didn't the Ashanti say they lost to Wolsely in 1874 because he had better magic powers rather than better guns? I read that they thought telegraph wires had great ju-ju & strung up vines in the bush, hoping to getting the same results. Then they decided he was a great medicine man & set up the Sagrenti (Sir Garnet) cult.

 

[GIJoe]

Many African nations also had a different worldview regarding fighting. Didn't the Ashanti say they lost to Wolsely in 1874 because he had better magic powers rather than better guns? I read that they thought telegraph wires had great ju-ju & strung up vines in the bush, hoping to getting the same results. Then they decided he was a great medicine man & set up the Sagrenti (Sir Garnet) cult.

Perhaps.

Then again, plenty of Europeans believed that demons caused mental health disorders or that, sometimes you could talk to your dead wife by holding hands with a a schizophrenic clear into the mid-twentieth century...

 

[Simon Girty]

One mans mental health disorder is another man's link with the gods.
But getting back to the arms race theory, maybe some African warriors just disdained new-fangled weapons. The Mahdi at Omdurman had leftover machine guns from the last attempt to defeat him. He never used them & sent men attacking with swords & chainmail.

 

[RandomRodent]

One mans mental health disorder is another man's link with the gods.
But getting back to the arms race theory, maybe some African warriors just disdained new-fangled weapons. The Mahdi at Omdurman had leftover machine guns from the last attempt to defeat him. He never used them & sent men attacking with swords & chainmail.

How much do you know about the care and feeding of Gatling and Gardener machine guns? If I dumped a bunch in your lap which had been made unserviceable by their crews would you know how to fix them? Do you know if you they use the same ammunition? Do you know how to tell such ammunition apart? Can you tell such ammunition from that used by the Martini-Henry rifle?

 

[Sundiata1]

If I dumped a bunch in your lap which had been made unserviceable by their crews would you know how to fix them? Do you know if you they use the same ammunition? Do you know how to tell such ammunition apart? Can you tell such ammunition from that used by the Martini-Henry rifle?

That's the main issue. These machines need a certain degree of expertise just to handle them. And servicing them is a whole other ball game...

The Mahdi at Omdurman had leftover machine guns from the last attempt to defeat him. He never used them & sent men attacking with swords & chainmail.

Also at the Battle of Tamai, the Mahdists captured several Gatling guns during the battle, but seem to have been unable to use them, and the British recaptured them later in the same battle. If the Mahdists knew how to use them they could have realistically dropped a few hundred more Brits, and perhaps even won the battle, but didn't...

It looks like they're trying though... +1 for the effort.

 

[Simon Girty]