(Commentary on the Slave Trade):

The Slave trade originated in Europe, and was in essence, a holocaust in the making. A massive murder, like in due time America would do to the Indian Race, the Europeans were doing to the blacks long before. They, Europeans, were coming out of the, Middle Ages, and their new form of nationalism, turned into a spotted form of racism, thus the trade between Africa and Europe was one of convenience, technology vs. free labor. Of course slavery was not new to Europe, Feudalism was a form of Enslavement, and Europe was well acquainted with that.
And now, let us not forget the Arab slave trade, they like Europe and America would get in on this bonanza of human flesh that offered the new era so many possibilities. It would be fair to say, the Muslims violated their own faith during the time they took advantage of this new occurring bonanza (roll-over wealth); because it was all based on gain, money, self-interest, dehumanization.
Like so often peoples and countries do, have done and are doing today: the Arabs came into Africa as friends, hands out for comradeship, and peace and good will, only for the Africans to find out, they were as ruthless as the Romans had been before them.
It would seem the Portuguese and the Arab slave trade met along the golden highway, and cooperated with one another for personal gain.
Now back to Europe. Here was a Christian world, which pushed upon a civilization imprisonment for no wrongs commented, for the ships were all of that and more. And who created the documentation for these human cargos—Europe? This I suppose justified the buyer, and of course victimized the slave. People can say what they will to wipe their hands clean, but the market was there, as it was in America, South America, and with the Arabs and let us not forget, the Caribbean Islands.
I don’t know how the adaptability was, nor does anyone else for sure, but from all my learning in counseling and psychology, one would have to form a dual personality to survive, depending on prevailing conditions, if not become neurotic, or even catatonic, disassociation, and borderline schizophrenia, and perhaps many did go beyond the borderline.