Final answer:
The Atlantic slave trade during the ninth through the fifteenth centuries was characterized by racial prejudices and economic exploitation, with the dehumanization of Africans enabling their use as commodities within a system that created modern Western capitalism. The correct answer is a. Economic exploitation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Atlantic slave trade reflected the times during which it existed mainly through racial prejudices and economic exploitation. These two facets were deeply intertwined as the construction of racial hierarchies justified the merciless exploitation of African individuals for economic gain.
The perception of Africans as 'natural slaves' with 'God-ordained inferiority' allowed European traders and plantation owners to enact brutal trade practices and labor systems that fuelled the economic engines of European nations and the Americas.
Slaves became commodities in a transoceanic capitalist system, producing profitable crops such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton.
This dehumanizing trade created modern Western capitalism, predicated on the substantial profits generated from slave labor while devastating African societies by fracturing families, disrupting traditional social and economic systems, and causing lasting economic and societal impacts, still evident in present-day Africa.