5. Trade Alliances and Economic Incentives
European colonists offered goods, weapons, and trade privileges to Native tribes willing to participate in the slave trade. For some groups, involvement became a means of survival or power in an increasingly volatile world. These trade alliances created new economic incentives, encouraging tribes to capture and sell rivals as slaves. The exchange of captives for firearms, metal tools, and other resources not only strengthened certain tribes but also deepened divisions and rivalries, further entangling indigenous communities in the machinery of the transatlantic slave economy.
