Final answer:
African kings likely viewed individuals sold into the transatlantic slave trade as criminals, debtors, prisoners of war, or cultural outsiders from different societies, often resulting from wars or conflicts.
Step-by-step explanation:
The way African kings viewed the Africans they sold during the transatlantic slave trade can be summarized as viewing them primarily as criminals, debtors, and prisoners of war. These kings and rulers of West African kingdoms likely saw the individuals they were selling as outsiders or alien to their own societies and domains, often resulting from inter-tribal conflicts, wars, or violations of laws within their own societies. The sold individuals often spoke different languages and possessed different cultural backgrounds, which further alienated them from the societies of the African rulers who sold them into slavery.
It's important to note that at the time, there was no pan-African identity that grouped all African people together; the concept of an 'African' was not a united or shared identity. Furthermore, in the context of traditional forms of African servitude, enslaved individuals among African societies were not typically seen as private property in the same way as in the chattel slavery practised by Europeans and Americans.