Outline four reason why africans were preferred as slaves

Military strength of tribal nations sufficient enough to be a threat to the young colonies; taking Native slaves could be risky and sometimes costly endeavor.

The African slave market was more convenient and cost-effective, compared to warring with tribes and trying to enslave a people that would either die quickly in bondage, or could escape more readily.

Suicide was vastly more common at the point of enslavement. This was a sort of macabre market force. Those African slaves that made it through the gauntlet - being captured by slave raiders, amassed in horrific staging areas, and then taken across the sea in slave ships, were less likely to kill themselves after they arrived in the Americas. Natives being captured in their homelands and enslaved would often kill themselves (just as Africans were more prone to commit suicide in Africa during the initial stages of their enslavement). This is precisely why the Indian slave trade that did exist from the late 1600 until the early 1700s, actually sent the majority of Native slaves to the Caribbean, ironically, often in exchange for African slaves. The same principle was at play though...when the Indians arrived in these locations where Blacks made up the majority of the population, they had nowhere to run and seek freedom.

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