port trade inspired new ways to use slave labor because slaves were not only cheaper, but also available in greater numbers.
The "legitimate trade" that was supposed to replace the slave trade was usually commerce in commodities—cloves, copra, coconut oil, grain—produced by slave labor. Slaves dug up copal and collected wild rubber or they farmed so that their masters go out and collect commodities for export. (In West Africa slaves produced palm oil, a staple of "legitimate trade" but peasant farmers grew other export commodities such as peanuts.)
The European and American demand for ivory—an almost insatiable desire for luxury goods (as "trivial" as combs and billiard balls)—illustrates very ironically the profound disparity between the economic development of Africa and that of the West. It is mind-boggling to think that ivory "revolutionized the economy of an entire region."
Finally, a great opportunity for substantive development slipped away in the ships carrying ivory to India, Europe, and America. The ivory trade depleted a limited resource that was exchanged for cloth and for the firearms that were used to kill more elephants, to raid for slaves, and to wage war. This provided no basis for long-term development. This outcome is even more ironic when viewed alongside the statistical data that demonstrate how the terms of trade favored Eastern Africa throughout the nineteenth century (for details see Sheriff 1987). During the course of the nineteenth century, the export price of ivory increased steadily (rising by six percent annually during the period 1823 to 1873), while the prices being paid for cloth were generally low and often decreasing (Sheriff: 88: 102).