The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa

Abstract

We investigate the historical origins of mistrust within Africa. Combining contemporary household survey data with historic data on slave shipments, we show that individuals whose ancestors were heavily raided during the slave trade today exhibit less trust in neighbors, relatives, and their local government. We confirm that the relationship is causal by using the historic distance from the coast of a respondent's ancestors as an instrument for the intensity of the slave trade, while controlling for the individual's current distance from the coast. We undertake a number of falsification tests, all of which suggest that the necessary exclusion restriction is satisfied. Exploiting variation among individuals who live in locations different from their ancestors, we show that most of the impact of the slave trade works through factors that are internal to the individual, such as cultural norms, beliefs, and values.

On the Ethnic Origins of African Development: Chiefs and Precolonial Political Centralization

“…Fifth, Nunn (2008) shows that the slave trades -that preceded colonization- had significant long-run negative consequences on development, mostly by creating animosity among ethnicities and leading to inter-ethnic conflict. In line with this idea, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) document a strong negative within-country association between historical enslavement and proxies of social-civic capital.…”

Regulation and Distrust*

“…Glaeser and Shleifer (2002) argue that France and England developed their legal systems many centuries ago in response to very different levels of disorder prevalent in the two countries, with England being much more peaceful and orderly than France. The two legal traditions were subsequently transplanted through conquest and colonization to many parts of the world, and there is no reason to think that the colonies of the two countries started with different levels of distrust (Nunn and Wantchekon 2008). On the other hand, our paper suggests that, over time, the level of regulation can itself influence investment in social capital.…”

Pre-Colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development

“…One may wonder how much the spatial distribution of ethnicities across the continent has changed over the past 150 years. Reassuringly, using individual data from the Afrobarometer Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) show a 0.55 correlation between the location of the respondents in 2005 and the historical homeland of their ethnicity as identified in Murdock’s map. Similarly, Glennerster, Miguel, and Rothenberg (2010) document that in Sierra Leone after the massive displacement of the 1991–2002 civil war there has been a systematic movement of individuals towards their ethnic group’s historical homeland.…”