On the contrary, a number of other small yet powerful states existed throughout the entire period.

If this had not been so, the Europeans, as they arrived in the fifteenth century, could have pillaged West Africa at will.

Instead, the Europeans were only able to establish trading stations where local kings permitted it.

With the exception of a few raiding parties which seized Africans and carried them off as slaves, most slave acquisition was done through hard bargaining and a highly systematized trading process.

The Europeans were never allowed to penetrate inland, and they found that they always had to treat the African kings and their agents as business equals.