Livingstone realized that the slave trade could not continue apart from the African’s own participation in it. When slave-raiding was the way to wealth, the temptation was always present to engage in those raids on weaker neighboring tribes that made life perilous for the defenseless. Only if the Africans could be persuaded to engage in legitimate commerce, exchanging the products of their own fields and forests for those desirable things the white man could supply, would the evil and destructive commerce be brought to an end.
