Final answer:
The enslaved people were a regular part of the Triangular Trade, linking North America, Africa, and Europe, transforming societies and economies across three continents.
Step-by-step explanation:
The group that was a regular part of commerce linking North America, Africa, and Europe, even in the north, was enslaved people. This trade was part of a larger system known as the Triangular Trade, which operated from the late fifteenth through the early nineteenth centuries. The Atlantic Triangle Trade created a network connecting three continents – Europe, Africa, and the Americas – facilitating the exchange of goods, including firearms, manufactured products, and enslaved individuals.
In the process, it transformed the nature of societies, militarizing states and shifting the focus of African trade to accommodate European demands. This system played an integral role in the economies of several African kingdoms, with some West African polities like Whydah and Dahomey becoming wealthy by supplying captives to Europeans. The influence of the slave trade on Africa was profound, leading to sustained conflicts and disruption in various regions of the continent, especially around the Central Sudan.
Centers of trade such as Awdaghost, Sijilmasa, and Djenné linked the trade routes across the vast Saharan landscape, enabling the diffusion of cultural influences and the movement of commodities like gold, ivory, and human cargo across the globe. Moreover, trade routes established political alliances and protections among kingdoms, though the continent was too vast to form a single integrated political system. The trade network spanned far beyond Africa, reaching the Middle East, Europe, and across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, shaping a complex web of international commerce.