Africa, like the rest of the world outside Europe, had not made the break-through in science, technology, and capitalism which had occurred in Europe.
Nevertheless, they had their own systems of economics, scholarship, art, and religion as well as a highly complex social and political structure.
There are common elements which run throughout the entire continent of Africa, but to gain the best insight into the background of the American slaves, West African culture can be isolated and studied by itself.
The West African economy was a subsistence economy, and therefore people were basically satisfied with the status quo and saw no point in accumulating wealth.

Also in a subsistence economy, there is little need for money, and most trade was done through barter.

Because there was no money, there was no wage labor.

Instead, labor was created either through a system of domestic slavery or through a complex system of reciprocal duties and obligations.

However, West African slavery was more like the European system of serfdom than it was like modern slavery.
Within this subsistence economy, each tribe or locality tended to specialize in certain fields of agriculture or manufacture which necessitated a vigorous and constant trade between all of them.