Was Early Modern African Cavalry Financed By The Slave Trade?

by Zeuvembie

In one of those perennial "I read it on wikipedia" bits, the claim was made that:

States like Dagoma in northern Ghana, Nupe and the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo in Nigeria were very dependent on imports of horses, usually financed by the sale of slaves.

With the explanation that horses had to be imported because of difficulties breeding and losses to tsetse flies. This would be during the period of the slave trade with Europe and the Americas, so I'm curious if this was a "fourth angle" of the Triangular Trade. But is this an accurate assessment? Were human beings sold in part to finance equestrian pursuits in Europe?

Yes, there was trade in slaves for horses.

I would not call it part of the Triangular Trade though, and not a "fourth angle".

I'm not familiar with Dagoma, but Nupe and Oyo were sourcing their horses from the Hausa states to the north of them, which had a more favorable breeding environment in a drier, less forested region.

The classic scholarship like Robin Law and others have always characterized slaves-for-horses as emblematic of the Trans-Saharan slave trade.

There may have been some degree of economic integration of Oyo or Dagoma or Nupe into the Atlantic trade network. When Oyo tried to conquer Dahomey, that could be read as an attempt to take out a dangerous neighbor and gain Atlantic ports.

But, I think it makes most sense to understand cavalry accumulation as part of the separate north-south trans-Saharan trade network rather than as a "fourth corner" of the Triangle Trade.