SLAVERY

CAPTURE AND ENSLAVEMENT IN AFRICA

FEMI BADA, MD 2/20/2014

ANNUAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE LECTURE SERIES SLAVERY CAPTURE and ENSLAVEMENT IN AFRICA FEMI BADA, MD Hamilton, Bermuda March 26, 2014 Introduction In the course of more than 300 years, the forcible transportation of an estimated 12 million people, men, women and children, in bondage from their African homelands across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, forever changed the face and character of the modern world. Slave trade was very brutal and horrific. The capture and enslavement of Africans was cruel, exploitative and dehumanising. The capture and enslavement of these millions of people represent, in history, one of the longest and most sustained assaults on the very life, integrity and dignity of human beings. In the Americas where these people were taken, the transportation and subsequent enslavement of these Africans would be a major factor in the resettlement of these continents following the disastrous decline of their indigenous population. This movement of people by enslavement to the Americas also resulted in considerable riches which their free labour created for others. This transatlantic slave

trade provided the foundation for modern capitalism. It generated immense wealth for the business enterprises in Europe and the Americas. It contributed to the industrialisation of Northwestern Europe. It also helped create a single Atlantic world which included Western Europe, Western Africa, the islands of the Caribbean, and the Americas. There is the belief that the impact on Africa of its involvement in the creation of this modern world was negative. Africa experienced the loss of a significant part of her able bodied population. This has played a part in the social and political weakening of its societies that left them fragmented and open, in the mid-19th Century to colonial domination and exploitation. Development of the Trade Slavery or the involuntary human servitude was practised across Africa from prehistoric times to the modern era. However, today when people think of slavery, many envision the form which existed in North America before the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865. The picture is one of one racially identifiable group owning and exploiting another. In Africa many societies recognised slaves merely as property, and others recognised them as dependents who eventually might be integrated into the families of the slave owners. In some societies slaves were allowed to attain positions of military or administrative power. Both the slave owners and the slaves were blacks and contrary to theories that have been expounded, actually belonged in most cases to the same ethnic group as will be explained later.

Traditionally those slaves were used to perform menial or domestic chores, to serve as wives or concubines, or to enhance the social status of the slave owners. These traditional practices of slavery were altered somewhat at the beginning of the 7th Century by two groups of non-African slave traders: the Arab Muslims and the European Christians. The Arab Muslims raided and traded for African slaves from the 7th Century to the 20th Century in West, Central and East Africa. These slaves were sent each year in their thousands to North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. The European Christians bought millions of slaves in West, Central and East Africa from the 15th Century to the 19th Century, sending these to Europe, South, Central and North America and the Caribbean. These two overlapping waves of transcontinental trading made slave trade central to the economies of many African states and threatened many more Africans with enslavement. Of course, both groups of non-African slave traders made their fortunes on the back of these helpless slaves. In the mid-15th Century Portuguese ships sailed down the West African coast in a manouver employed to bypass the Muslim North Africans who had at that time a virtual monopoly of the trade of Sub Saharan gold, spices and other commodities which Europe wanted. These Portuguese voyages resulted in the maritime advances and discoveries in ship-building which would later make it easier for them to venture across the Atlantic in search of the 'New World'.

Over some time these Portuguese vessels added another commodity to their cargo to Europe; African men, women and children. Initially for the first hundred years of this trade, only captives in small numbers were transported to Europe. However, by the end of the 15th Century it was reported that about ten percent (10%) of the population of Lisbon, Portugal, then one of the largest European cities, was of African origin. Some of these captives were taken to the islands off the West African coast, including Madeira, Cape Verde and especially San Tome, where the Portuguese had established sugar plantations using slave labour on such a scale that foreshadowed the development of plantation slaves in the Caribbean and the Americas. The trans-Atlantic slave trade was started by the Portuguese in the middle of the 15th Century; the first slaves were in fact sent from Portugal and the first slave voyage direct from Africa to the Americas took place in 1526. The Portuguese were closely followed by the Spaniards, and after a longer interval in 1562 by the British, then in quick succession by the Dutch in about 1620, the French in 1640, the Swedes, Danes, Prussians, Germans and even the Russians soon after. This was the first stage of the development of this trade. The second stage began with the discovery of the Americas by Cristobal Columbus and of gold in of Haiti, called Hispaniola by the Spaniards. The indigenous Caribs and Arawaks proving intractable or decimated by diseases introduced by the newly arrived Spaniards, proved useless as labourers. Thus the Spaniards contracted with the Portuguese for the supplies of Africans resulting in the transportation of the blacks not directly from Africa but from Portugal across the Atlantic to these Spanish acquired islands.

The Spaniards for some time continue to rely on the Portuguese as suppliers and intermediaries for their African slaves. However, with expansion of the Spanish conquests in the Caribbean and South America, the demand for additional human material for use to exploit the natural riches of these countries increased incessantly. The Spanish Sovereign, therefore, introduced and established a system of special contracts (Assiento) which became the licence under which from time to time the Spanish bestowed the monopoly of the supply of African slaves to their Caribbean and American possessions on foreign contractors, nations, companies or individuals. These licence holders in turn employed sub-contractors, some as we now know were unsavoury characters. The first English contractor was John Hawkins, a Pirate by all accounts, who appeared on the scene in 1562 with the blessing of Queen Elizabeth I, who was actually a 'sleeping partner' in his endeavours. John Hawkins embarked on his career of murder and piracy in the good ship named 'Jesus of Lubek' a seven-hundred-ton boat which the Queen's father had bought years before and which was now lent to him by his Royal confederate; he was knighted ten years later by the Queen as a reward for 'his persistent energies', which was described by the Press of the day as 'going every day on shore to take the inhabitants with burning and spoiling their towns'. The third stage of this trade development occurred in the century that followed, which saw the collapse of the Spaniards' attempted imperial monopoly of the Americas and of the Portuguese attempted imperial monopoly of the African seas.

Meanwhile the newly emerging British and French empires were evolving across the Atlantic. Adventurous spirits from many other European nations were also hastening towards the 'New World'. The British, French, Danes and Dutch were fighting for the control of the countless ports on the West African coast. By the middle of the 17th Century the British had become the direct exporters both from West African coast through 'The African Company' the forerunner of 'The United African Company' which many of us grew up to know in West Africa by its initials 'UAC' - the purveyor of the 'finest European goods', our equivalent of todays Harrods in London or Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. The British also had 'The Company of Barbary Merchants', amongst whose director was the Earl of Warwick, to handle the trade from the Mediterranean. The French, Dutch and Danes, were meanwhile also exporting a considerable numbers of slaves from the settlements that they had founded on the West African coasts, to their respective possessions in the Caribbean and Mainland America to work on their sugar and coffee plantations. However, the Swedish effort at slave trade was short-lived as was the Prussians'; a curious isolated attempt on the part of the German Baltic Barons came to nothing.

Capture and Enslavement There were several ways in which these slaves were captured and then shipped across the Atlantic. Local Wars: War, slave trading, and politico-religious struggles accounted for the vast majority of the people exported from the West African coast. For example, the Akan Wars of the late 17th and early 18th Century, in what is now Ghana, were a struggle for power amongst the states of the 'Gold Coast' hinterland. It pitted the Akwanu, Akyem, Dankyira Fante and Asante (Ashanti) groups against one another for more than fifty (50) years. By the mid-18th Century, the Asante (Ashanti) emerged as the dominant force. In the nearby of what is now South Western Nigeria, by 1650, Oyo had become an imperial power of its own in the interior of the Bight of Benin by defeating the Nupe and Bariba people in the North West and other Yoruba states to the South. Similarly wars between various Gbe people who lived to the west of what is now Nigeria, resulted in the rise of Dahomey (present day Republic of Benin) and its victory over the Allada people in 1724. The winner occupied the Port of Whydah (the region now known as Ouidah) (an important port of embarkation of slaves) for three (3) years. All these wars resulted in millions of people captured in battle being exported from the Bight of Benin alone; this was a total departure from the practice of previous African enslavement. The sixty (60) years of the Kongo (Congo) Wars which ended in 1740 was responsible for the capture and enslavement of many millions Africans. Amongst those

captured were the followers of a black female Catholic martyr, Kimpa Vita also known as Dona Beatrice of Kongo, who w tried to end these wars through pacifist protests. The spread in the late 17th Century of militant Islam across West Africa began in Senegambia (today's Senegal and Gambia). The jihad (does this sound familiar today?) led to two major political transformations. One was the emergence in the late 18th Century of the Muslim states of Futa Jalon (mountainous highlands of modern Republic of Guinea) and Futa Toro (today's northern Senegal and southern Mauritania). The jihad movement continued well into the 19th Century especially with the outbreak of war in 1804 in what is now Northern Nigeria in the Hausa states under the Fulani under the leadership of the Emir (Sheikh) Usman dan Fodio. These wars spread southwards and thus exacerbated the political tensions in Oyo resulting in a Muslim uprising and the subsequent collapse between 11817 and 1833 of the Oyo State. The collapse resulted in the creation of new Yoruba strongholds at Ibadan, Abeokuta and Ijebu. The introduction of firearms, which were now being exchanged as goods for slaves after 1700 heightened the intensity of many of these wars, resulting in even more people being enslaved. Sometimes, European traders intervened in localised fighting and warfare, using their armed guards, who were more used to firearms, They sought to obtain slaves directly in these battles or as rewards for having backed the winning sides.The Portuguese especially working from their permanent settlements in Luanda, Benguela and other coastal sites conducted joint military ventures into the hinterlands with their mixed African offsprings, the 'mulattoes' and their African allies.

Non-military enslavement: 1. Judicial and Religious Sanctions: The punishment meted out sometimes removed alleged criminals, people accused of witchcraft, and social misfits through enslavement and banishment. Thus rebellious family members might be expelled from their homes through enslavement. 2. Human Pawns: Human pawns, especially children, and those held as collateral for debts were almost always protected from enslavement by relatives and customary practices. However, debts and the collateral for these debts were sometimes subjected to illegal demands. These pawned individuals, especially children were sometimes 'sold' or otherwise removed from the watchful eyes of the relatives and communities that had tried to safeguard their rights. 3. Kidnapping: Although kidnapping was a crime in most communities, some people were also kidnapped and sold into slavery. Since these captives were sometimes ransomed, this practice often encouraged the taking of captives for monetary rewards.

Slavery and Ethnicity: The Yoruba Identity In my 'Personal Profile', I had written that I am a Yoruba from the South Western area of what is now called Nigeria. Nigeria as a country came into existence in 1914, when the Colony of Lagos was incorporated as a single entity with the British Protectorate of North and South areas bordering the Rivers Niger and Benue. Whenever 'Slavery' is discussed or written about, the terms 'tribes', 'ethnic groups' are always used. But, what is the definition of ethnicity? Citing Frank Bessac,

the American Anthropologist who died in 2010 and who contributed in "Where we Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Jerusalem', the Nigerian Biodun Adediran, who is a Professor of African Studies at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria, contends that ' if a collection of people share a common, self-applied appellation, have a sense and share a belief in a common heritage, then for all intents and purposes they should be regarded as an ethnic group'. Robin Law, who until his retirement was a Professor of History at the University of Stirling, Scotland, and who also held an Honorary Post at the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, University of Liverpool, England, assets that for the slave trade ethnic identification was essential: 'for the operation of the Atlantic slave trade on both the African and European sides'. For the African side, he maintained, that ethnic identities served to define a category of 'others', who were legitimately enslaveable. Europeans for their part regularly distinguished different ethnicities amongst slaves purchased; American markets developed preferences for slaves of particular ethnic region. The Yoruba people of West Africa played a significant role in selling their fellow compatriots as slaves to the European merchants for export to the Americas, to such destinations as Brazil, the Caribbean, Cuba and elsewhere else. In order to understand how this sale of one's compatriots in to slavery, it is important to understand the social structure of the Yoruba and their Ethnic Identity, both in Africa and the Diaspora.

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What became known as the 'Slave Coast' to the Europeans, was an area of one of the largest concentrations of segmental states which stretched from the River Volta to the Eastern end of Lagos, including the Yoruba country. Although now regarded as a single 'nation' or 'ethnic group', the Yoruba in the pre-colonial days did not form a single political unit, but consisted of separate polities and communities in what is now South Western Nigeria. The characteristic features of the cultural identity among the Yoruba lay partly in the closely related languages, shared history of origins, shared basic religious beliefs and social organisations. These were large urban settlements and 'City States'. Kinship is very important attribute within the Yoruba society and it is also patrilineal in nature. Thus kinsmen were bound together by a common paternal descent from one's ancestor tracing back to several generations. It was, and is still, regarded as a connecting factor within the society as an economic unit. The Yoruba language was for example by the early 17th Century had emerged as the main language along the coast of West Africa from Volta in the West to Benin in the East. This meant that Yoruba language was spoken and Yoruba gods were worshipped on the West African coast even where there was no Yoruba domination. Benin (not the present day Republic of Benin) and Yoruba traditions merged and many Yoruba people served in the Benin Court, while art styles were freely exchanged in the entire area. Thus in the Diaspora these exchanges basically established the likelihood of these being carried there too as is evidenced in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and amongst returned slaves in Sierra Leone.

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African Complicity in the Slave Trade In the early 1998, President Bill Clinton paid a visit to Africa. During that visit, he apologised in Uganda, of all places, for Americans' involvement in the slave trade. Most Americans had believed, and President Clinton's apology aligned itself to with this, that Africans were captured by amphibious attacks on the coast by European and American ships. This myth was in the 1990's was given further credence by what might be called 'The Roots Scenario', as shown by the television mini-series 'Roots'. In the television adaptation, Europeans were shown managing to co-operate with some Africans in their plans to kidnap their fellow Africans for enslavement. Thus, the main character Kunta Kinte was shown being 'netted' by a group of Africans working under the direction of an American factor. The same scenario was also invoked by the capture of Cinque in the film 'Amistad'. When this theory of African complicity is developed further, the so-called African political leaders' implication in such a trade was portrayed as drunken, coarse, venal and very much 'selling out to the European intensions'; the Europeans who ran the trade. However, there is nothing in reality about all this, but most people following African History are often shocked when they are exposed to the fact that the African elite of the time participated in this trade. The question of African Complicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade was the central issue in the controversial screening of Professor Henry Louis Gates' six-part television series on the American PBS channel and the British BBC in 2000.

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In the series, Wonders of the African World', some commentators felt that this was one more attempt to rewrite the history of slavery and to somehow share the blame with us Africans. In fact some commentators felt that the series seemed to suggest that 'the entire project of slavery would not have occurred if it had not been for African involvement'. However, blaming the victims for the predicament of enslavement was in the series neither historically correct nor morally valid. Although some may observe that nowhere in the 'Wonders of the African World' is there a theme of African resistance to the enslavement of Africans; in fact Africans fought against the trade. For example, Nzinga Mbembe, who was the Ruler of the Kongo (Congo) Kingdom, had converted to Christianity in 1491. He referred to the King of Portugal as his brother. On coming to power in 1506, he protested strongly at the fact that the Portuguese, his brother's subjects felt entitled to rob his possession and carry off his people into slavery. How very naive?!! Unfortunately, this protestation was to no avail. He was gradually convinced that the slave trade was both useful and necessary for both sides. He was offered amongst other goods, rifles; as only the states equipped with rifles and thus participating in the slave trade, were able to resist attacks from their neighbours and pursue expansionist policies. As the slave trade developed, the African states involved fell into the trap set by the European slavers: 'Trade or go under'. All these states along the coast or close to the slave the slave trading outposts were divided between national interest, which 13

demanded that no resource necessary to security and prosperity be neglected, and the founding blueprint which imposed on the rulers the obligation to defend the lives, property and rights of their subjects. Thus, these states involved in the slave trade 'tried' to keep it within limits. For example, in 1670 the French requested permission to establish a trading post on his territory, King Terzifor of Allada (Dahomey) made a far-sighted reply, 'You will make a house in which you put at first two little pieces of cannon, then the next year you will mount four. Then a little later your factory metamorphosed into a fort that will make you master of my dominions and enable you to give laws to me'. Of course, there was complicity in some areas. For example, in Angola, Mozambique and certain parts of Guinea, European slave traders indeed got directly involved in local warfare and trade networks with the help of local black accomplices or as I had mentioned before, men people who were offsprings of earlier white adventures and their mothers. Indeed, some of these women became quite wealthy due to these previous liaisons with these Portuguese men. A commentator, Piero Scaruffi, argued that moral opposition to slavery began in Europe even before Lincoln. He continued that opposition to slavery was never particularly strong in Africa itself. He went on to say that slavery would have remained common in most African kingdoms until today had it not been that all those kingdoms became colonies of Western Europeans, which for one reason decided to outlaw slavery.

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He even went on to suggest that it is not a coincidence that slavery was abolished at the same a time when millions of European and Chinese immigrants provided the same kind of cheap labour as the slaves before. He has put forward an argument that slavery was practised much later by the Europeans than everyone else and thus, rather than piling the blame on Americans and Europeans, why not equally blame Ghana and Congo In fact, what is quite unique about the European slave trade was the scale of the number of able-bodied people shipped by force to another foreign continent in such a short period of time. There was the carnage and the loss of millions of lives en-route to these plantations What cannot also be denied is that the trade eventually became a racist affair. If it was not cruel enough to be enslaved, the blacks were now subjected to discrimination. The previous slave trades as I had mentioned before did not discriminate on the colour of the skin of the captives. The Americas, especially North America in particular was unique in this unfair treatment that the blacks received after emancipation. I have in the following estimated statistics tried to show how the slave trade was conducted and what was the loss to Africa, especially West, Central and to some extent, East Africa.

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Slave Numbers by Century 1500 - 1600 1601 - 1700 1701- 1800 1801 - 1900 328,000 ( 2.9%) 1,348,000 (12.0%) 6,090,000 (54.2%) 3,466,000 (30.9%)

(Source: 'Transformations in Slavery: Paul Lovejoy: 2000)

Origins of the Slaves Senegambia Windward Coast Ivory Coast Gold Coast Slave Coast (Dahomey to Oyo) Benin to Rivers (Calabar) Cameroon/Gabon Loango (now Republic of Congo) Congo/Angola Mozambique/Madagascar Total leaving African Ports 2,000,000 250,000 250,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 250,000 750,000 3,000,000 1,000,000 13,000,000

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Carrier Countries Voyages Portugal (& Brazil) Britain Spain (& Cuba) France (& West Indies) Holland British N.America/US Denmark Others Total 30,000 12,000 4,000 4,200 2,000 1,500 250 250 54,000 Number of Transported Slaves 4,650,000 2,600.000 1,600,000 1,250,000 500,000 300,000 50,000 50,000 11,000,000

Destination of the Slaves (1500 - 1900) Brazil Spanish empire (& Cuba) British West Indies French West Indies British N. America (& US) Dutch West Indies (& Surinam) 4,000,000 (35.4%) 2,500,000 (22.1%) 2,000,000 (17.7%) 1,600,000 (14.1%) 500,000 ( 4.4%) 500,000 ( 4.4%)

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Europe (Portugal/Madeira/Azores/Canaries) Danish West Indies Total

200,000 ( 1.8%) 28,000 ( 0.2%) 11,328,000 (100.0%)

(Source: 'The Slave Trade: Hugh Thomas,1997)

Arab Slave Trade to the Middle East

17,000,000

Some Landmark Dates 700: Zanzibar becomes the main Arab Slave Trading Port in Africa 1325: The King of Mali: Pilgrimage to Mecca carrying 500 slaves and 100 camels 1444: 1st public sale of African slaves by European: Lisbon, Portugal 1482: Portugal founds 1st European Slave Trading post in Africa (Elmina, Gold Coast) 1500 - 1600: Portuguese virtual monopoly in slave trade to the Americas

1528: Spanish Government issues Assientos, (contracts) to private companies for the trade of African slaves 1619: The Dutch begin the slave trade between Africa and the Americas 1637: The Dutch captures the main trading post in Africa, Elmina 1650: The Dutch become the dominant slave trading country 1700: Britain becomes the dominant slave trading country 1789: The English Privy Council's inquiry concludes that almost 50% of the slaves exported from Africa die before reaching the Americas
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1790: This is the height of the British slave trade, when one slave vessel leaves England for Africa every other day 1807: Britain outlaws slavery 1848: France abolishes slavery 1851: USA population: 20,067,720 free persons, 2,077,034 slaves 1865: The Union defeats the Confederates and abolishes slavery in the USA

References: Adediran, Biodun: Yoruba Ethnic Groups or a Yoruba Ethnic Group? Adi, Hakim: Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Alaran, Remi-Niyi: The Story of the Slave Trade: 2001 Eno, Omar & Mohammed: Slavery, and Ethnicity: An Examination of the Social Contour of the Yorubas in Africa and in the Diaspora French, Howard:The World: The Atlantic Salve Trade; On Both Sides, Reason for Remorse: The New York Times: April 5, 1998 Gates, Henry Louis: Wonders of the African World: Six-Part Television Series for PBS and BBC: 2000 Johnson, Samuel: The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate: Edited by Obadiah Johnson: 1921
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M'bokolo, Elikia: The Impact of the slave trade on Africa: Le Monde diplomatique - English edition:1998 Novo, Marta Garcia: Islamic Law and Slavery in Premodern West Africa: 2011 Scaruffi, Piero: The Origins of the African Slave Trade Thomas, Hugh: The Slave Trade: The Story of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: 1440 - 1870: 1997 Wright, Donald R.: Slavery in Africa: Microsoft, Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000

Femi Bada, MD Hamilton, Bermuda February 20, 2014

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