LIST OF REASONS

Legitimate trade refers to the exchange of goods and commodities conducted under accepted legal and ethical practices. In African history, it specifically denotes the commerce that emerged after the abolition of the slave trade, in which African producers sold raw materials and cash crops such as palm oil, rubber, cotton, and cocoa to European merchants in exchange for manufactured goods. Legitimate trade resulted from slave trade abolition, emanated from the imperatives of industrial revolution, and thrived on a reconfigured African economic bases. Historians assert that legitimate trade emerged in Africa as a direct consequence of the need to replace the abhorrent system of the transatlantic slave trade with a more “acceptable” alternative that would supply the raw materials demanded by a rapidly industrializing Europe. They explain that after the abolition of the slave trade , European industrialists urgently required a steady supply of natural resources—commodities such as palm oil...