200 Years after Abolition: Did the Slave Trade really End? Part 1.
Hi evryone,i'm back with anoda brainstorming post i found while doing research on the net a few days ago,it was written by oluseye bassir and i believe there is no further truth than what this post contains, so read up and enjoy, and please drop a comment if u feel likei will appreciate your feedback,thanks.
News Type: Other — Mon Apr 2, 2007 10:21 AM EDT
world-news, britain, europe, africa, racism, nigeria, lvs0407, slavery, morality, blacks, west-africa, colonialism, oluseye-bassir, abolition, an001, trans-atlantic-slave-trade
Oluseye Bassir
world-news, britain, europe, africa, racism, nigeria, lvs0407, slavery, morality, blacks, west-africa, colonialism, oluseye-bassir, abolition, an001, trans-atlantic-slave-trade
Oluseye Bassir
The 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade has been well celebrated by the British. For them, it was a critical moment in their moral history. The celebrations in Africa have been less muted. For Africa, slavery has in many ways not ended.
While the British did abolish, and enforce their embargo, on the trading of African slaves, the moral impetus that drove and achieved the abolition was soon distorted into colonialism and scientific racism. This is one major reason why Africa's suffering has hardly ended. And just like thugs masquerading as African Kings, Clan heads, warriors, and Chieves sold their own people to European marauders, there is no shortage of maniacs and crooks to sustain modern African slavery.
Modern slavery has many forms. There is debt peonage. This is the situation in which stupid commercial banks who made poor and often corrupt loans which do not threaten their portfolios or their financial soundness are protected by sovereign governments to help keep the poorest in misery.
Another form of modern slavery is corruption. In this type, the symbiosis between local and foreign parasites is perfect. Huge sums of unexplainable wealth turns up in foreign banks who know the exact source of the wealth in poverty-stricken treasuries, take in the money and look the other way. In some cases these troves of liquid capital sustains large banking systems, being that the sums are huge and kept long-term in liquid balances. In one famous Nigerian case, a launderer for an ex-Nigerian dictator was found dead after attempting to withdraw a huge sum of money from some European bank. There are many other forms of slavery in Africa today.
There is of course slavery in its pure form. From forced trafficking in prostitutes to the forced peonage of poor children, in Africa, there still exists a large amount of forced labour. Of course there is Western ignorance about many of the forms of these which are purely benign, but in general, these forms revolve around serious dehumanisation of people.
In this abolition anniversary year, white guilt in its search for absolution has wrought up a new and pervasive theme. The refrain is to blame Africans for the slave trade in the first place. Before addressing this issue, I want to point out the racist basis of this topic. The attempt to put all of Africa together in treating this issue is a racist narrative. A more objective narrative is to blame marauders on both parts.
However where the question of blame needs resolution, it is hard not to blame Europeans mostly for this. It does not mean that every Briton today is to blame. That notion is obviously absurd. It does not mean Africans did not share blame. It however means that Europeans were the aggressors in the atrocities of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
It is true that both slavery and a slave trade had existed in Africa before the first European trade. The caravan trade in slaves bound for the Muslim World had existed for a while. The slaving routes stretched from ancient Luanda through the major slave trading depots of Kano through Algiers, Cairo, Tunis and other cities of the Maghreb.
Bill Freund in his 1986 book, "The making of contemporary Africa" established the Portuguese as the first to engage in the trading of slaves. These Portuguese apparently stole a Caravan bound for North Africa and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was born.
Slave-raiding expeditions began in earnest. These very often involved body-snatching, the playing of ethnic groups against each other, and other means. Some 80% of the slaves came from West Africa and particularly from Southern Nigeria.
From the moral perspective of blame, Europeans are the aggressors because African slavery as practised was completely different from the brutal variety that the British abolished. First of all, people became slaves primarily as a result of war. Kingdom A fights Kingdom B, and the people captured by either side, before the Geneva Convention became slaves. These almost always had exactly as many rights as their owners in these societies. In the Oyo Kingdom, one of the main empires of West Africa, some high political offices like the Commander in Chief (separate from the King) was reserved for slaves.
Since slavery had existed in all parts of the world for thousands of years before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the innovations of this particular type were in the unprecedented scale of its dehumanising brutality. The brutality of passage and transportation are well documented as has been the complete political, social and cultural dehumanisation of slaves in European and American societies.
African slavers had originally sold slaves they had captured from war. The rise of legitimate pre-colonial to early colonial exploitative (non-slave) trade in Africa contributed another impetus for warriors, criminals and even Kings to wage war just for slaving purposes just to buy European products.
The phenomenon of wars fought for slaving purposes was disastrous. In Nigeria it led to the breakdown of Kingdoms such as the Oyo and Benin Kingdoms, and all over West Africa it did the same. It ultimately set the stage for the successful colonisation of Africa.
It must be pointed out though that an African Chief or King selling slaves in general was not aware of the dehumanising conditions of passage, and the brutality of slave life in the New World. There is no documentation for this but it is very very clear that the African who sold slaves had a different moral picture of the trade. The reason is that African slavery was much less benign than the one which the seized slaves transited into once in European ownership. In fact, right from the slaving ports, the slave trade became a purely European affair. Africans were generally kept from the staff of trading ships for example and thus played no part in the atrocities of passage.
Every time I hear stories of Africans selling their own people I wonder why the people who say it fail to see the racism of their own words. The racism come from the idea that all Black people were the same, and all white people were the same. The reality is that most slavers sold not their own kin but the population of their enemies who they had captured in war. While within-ethnic group slaving did occur it was very rare. This notion that Europeans are excused because they were not selling their own people, beyond daft is also ignorant. The Europeans were not selling their own people and in general neither were the Africans.
Still on the topic of moral blame, it is also very paramount to point out that it was European and American society with its racism, hypocrisy, that was most dehumanising. Otherwise it would be most correct to blame the Slave-trading merchants of Liverpool, Bristol, Lisbon, etc, and their counterparts in Elmina, Badagry, etc. It would have sufficed. However, on the European and American side, a new dimension was added.
White Guilt can not find absolution this way. Absolution can not come from shifting the burden of blame to the victims. The point is that while a minority of Africans sold a lot of slaves, most of the rest did not. However, the entirety of European society gained from the stealing of bodies and souls. Africa was, at least statistically, the victim. That is even without discussing the places, like East Africa and parts of Southern Africa, where there was no African participation at all in slaving.
The idea of Africa as victim by the way is not appealing. It does not make for African accounting the domestic component in its misery and subjugation which has continued in various forms for over 500 years (Bob Marley's song, 400 years was wrong).
Nevertheless it is impossible and dishonest to take a history of African subjugation without adopting this narrative. It is the most consistently present, and the most empirical one. It is especially necessary because another claim of the racists today is that Africa should have recovered from the slave trade.
Part 2 will be published tomorrow. In part 2, we examine why the slave trade never ended but has merely shown up in new forms existing up till today. Don't miss it!
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While the British did abolish, and enforce their embargo, on the trading of African slaves, the moral impetus that drove and achieved the abolition was soon distorted into colonialism and scientific racism. This is one major reason why Africa's suffering has hardly ended. And just like thugs masquerading as African Kings, Clan heads, warriors, and Chieves sold their own people to European marauders, there is no shortage of maniacs and crooks to sustain modern African slavery.
Modern slavery has many forms. There is debt peonage. This is the situation in which stupid commercial banks who made poor and often corrupt loans which do not threaten their portfolios or their financial soundness are protected by sovereign governments to help keep the poorest in misery.
Another form of modern slavery is corruption. In this type, the symbiosis between local and foreign parasites is perfect. Huge sums of unexplainable wealth turns up in foreign banks who know the exact source of the wealth in poverty-stricken treasuries, take in the money and look the other way. In some cases these troves of liquid capital sustains large banking systems, being that the sums are huge and kept long-term in liquid balances. In one famous Nigerian case, a launderer for an ex-Nigerian dictator was found dead after attempting to withdraw a huge sum of money from some European bank. There are many other forms of slavery in Africa today.
There is of course slavery in its pure form. From forced trafficking in prostitutes to the forced peonage of poor children, in Africa, there still exists a large amount of forced labour. Of course there is Western ignorance about many of the forms of these which are purely benign, but in general, these forms revolve around serious dehumanisation of people.
In this abolition anniversary year, white guilt in its search for absolution has wrought up a new and pervasive theme. The refrain is to blame Africans for the slave trade in the first place. Before addressing this issue, I want to point out the racist basis of this topic. The attempt to put all of Africa together in treating this issue is a racist narrative. A more objective narrative is to blame marauders on both parts.
However where the question of blame needs resolution, it is hard not to blame Europeans mostly for this. It does not mean that every Briton today is to blame. That notion is obviously absurd. It does not mean Africans did not share blame. It however means that Europeans were the aggressors in the atrocities of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
It is true that both slavery and a slave trade had existed in Africa before the first European trade. The caravan trade in slaves bound for the Muslim World had existed for a while. The slaving routes stretched from ancient Luanda through the major slave trading depots of Kano through Algiers, Cairo, Tunis and other cities of the Maghreb.
Bill Freund in his 1986 book, "The making of contemporary Africa" established the Portuguese as the first to engage in the trading of slaves. These Portuguese apparently stole a Caravan bound for North Africa and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was born.
Slave-raiding expeditions began in earnest. These very often involved body-snatching, the playing of ethnic groups against each other, and other means. Some 80% of the slaves came from West Africa and particularly from Southern Nigeria.
From the moral perspective of blame, Europeans are the aggressors because African slavery as practised was completely different from the brutal variety that the British abolished. First of all, people became slaves primarily as a result of war. Kingdom A fights Kingdom B, and the people captured by either side, before the Geneva Convention became slaves. These almost always had exactly as many rights as their owners in these societies. In the Oyo Kingdom, one of the main empires of West Africa, some high political offices like the Commander in Chief (separate from the King) was reserved for slaves.
Since slavery had existed in all parts of the world for thousands of years before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the innovations of this particular type were in the unprecedented scale of its dehumanising brutality. The brutality of passage and transportation are well documented as has been the complete political, social and cultural dehumanisation of slaves in European and American societies.
African slavers had originally sold slaves they had captured from war. The rise of legitimate pre-colonial to early colonial exploitative (non-slave) trade in Africa contributed another impetus for warriors, criminals and even Kings to wage war just for slaving purposes just to buy European products.
The phenomenon of wars fought for slaving purposes was disastrous. In Nigeria it led to the breakdown of Kingdoms such as the Oyo and Benin Kingdoms, and all over West Africa it did the same. It ultimately set the stage for the successful colonisation of Africa.
It must be pointed out though that an African Chief or King selling slaves in general was not aware of the dehumanising conditions of passage, and the brutality of slave life in the New World. There is no documentation for this but it is very very clear that the African who sold slaves had a different moral picture of the trade. The reason is that African slavery was much less benign than the one which the seized slaves transited into once in European ownership. In fact, right from the slaving ports, the slave trade became a purely European affair. Africans were generally kept from the staff of trading ships for example and thus played no part in the atrocities of passage.
Every time I hear stories of Africans selling their own people I wonder why the people who say it fail to see the racism of their own words. The racism come from the idea that all Black people were the same, and all white people were the same. The reality is that most slavers sold not their own kin but the population of their enemies who they had captured in war. While within-ethnic group slaving did occur it was very rare. This notion that Europeans are excused because they were not selling their own people, beyond daft is also ignorant. The Europeans were not selling their own people and in general neither were the Africans.
Still on the topic of moral blame, it is also very paramount to point out that it was European and American society with its racism, hypocrisy, that was most dehumanising. Otherwise it would be most correct to blame the Slave-trading merchants of Liverpool, Bristol, Lisbon, etc, and their counterparts in Elmina, Badagry, etc. It would have sufficed. However, on the European and American side, a new dimension was added.
White Guilt can not find absolution this way. Absolution can not come from shifting the burden of blame to the victims. The point is that while a minority of Africans sold a lot of slaves, most of the rest did not. However, the entirety of European society gained from the stealing of bodies and souls. Africa was, at least statistically, the victim. That is even without discussing the places, like East Africa and parts of Southern Africa, where there was no African participation at all in slaving.
The idea of Africa as victim by the way is not appealing. It does not make for African accounting the domestic component in its misery and subjugation which has continued in various forms for over 500 years (Bob Marley's song, 400 years was wrong).
Nevertheless it is impossible and dishonest to take a history of African subjugation without adopting this narrative. It is the most consistently present, and the most empirical one. It is especially necessary because another claim of the racists today is that Africa should have recovered from the slave trade.
Part 2 will be published tomorrow. In part 2, we examine why the slave trade never ended but has merely shown up in new forms existing up till today. Don't miss it!
11 Votes
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Published to:
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