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Chapter five of Michael A. Gomen’s book, “Exchanging our Country Marks,” discusses the different societies of Sierra Leone and the gold coast, which contributed to the trade of almost 29% of African slaves into the Americas. The Chapter examines the political and social structures of these individual societies and how they may have transferred the same structures across the Atlantic into the “New World”, during the Atlantic slave trade. In some of these societies women were in leadership roles. The capturing and enslaving of women may have been in consequence to the fact that they were often skilled farmers in cotton and other crops, also possessing many skills, and despite their lower physical capabilities then men, they were still incredibly useful to the cultivation of American crops. The Political systems of Sierra Leone were incredibly complex, comparable to European societies at the time. Yet, instead of one individual political system, these tribes were a part of many political parts to a whole who came together in order to seek alliances.
In Enrique Angulo’s post regarding Treacherous places he states, “These expeditions were established on the idea that travelling alongside the rivers of the African continent and the “New World” would prove to be lucrative as well as provide the opportunity for exploration.” The Europeans based their knowledge of rivers on the African rivers they had encountered. Yet, when they came to the Americas, there rivers were quite different. One example of river systems being a site of trade and wealth in Africa is when Gomen states in Chapter five, “Europeans dealt directly with hinterland groups arriving in the Rio Nunez- Rio Pongas area, a site featuring the convergence of several rivers and where, for example, the Fulbe directed their slave caravans.” Water ways where large trade avenues for Africans where moving slaves and other commodities.