What results from European trade with other nations?

Trade among European and African precolonial nations developed relatively recently in the economic history of the African continent. Prior to the European voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century, African rulers and merchants had established trade links with the Mediterranean world, western Asia, and the Indian Ocean region. Within the continent itself, local exchanges among adjacent peoples fit into a greater framework of long-range trade.

Answer:The merchants from Britain, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands who began trading along the Atlantic coast of Africa therefore encountered a well-established trading population regulated by savvy and experienced local rulers. European companies quickly developed mercantile ties with these indigenous powers and erected fortified "factories," or warehouses, on coastal areas to store goods and defend their trading rights from foreign encroachment. Independent Portuguese merchants called lançados settled along the coasts and rivers of Africa from present-day Senegal to Angola, where they were absorbed into African society and served as middlemen between European and African traders