The process of capturing Africans and enslaving them was very complicated. Some of the groups that took enslaved Africans from the coast of Africa were the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, and British. In the beginning of the slave trade, people would try to capture natives from their African kingdoms. After they attempted the first method, they found it to be very difficult and realized it was easier to buy slaves from African kings. The kingdoms in Africa had slaves, as captives of war. Slavery in Africa was not as harsh and cruel as the slavery, which existed in European countries and America. During this period of slavery, slaves would sometimes have better lives than the lives of the peasants in the kingdom.

Olaudah Equiano, who was a slave in Africa and taken to England to become a slave, described his experiences as very different. He described European slavery as some of the cruelest things he had ever witnessed, compared to African slavery. To capture the Africans, the Europeans would provoke wars between African kingdoms. After these wars there would be a lot more slaves on the market to be sold to the Europeans, by Africans, because African slaves were prisoners of war. The enslaved Africans were forcibly moved into horrible ships and transported to Europe to be sold on the market as slaves. This was the very complicated and despicable process of capturing Africans.