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Iron shackles bound the African enslaved people together as they journeyed across the Atlantic. They were bound tightly. These shackles created physical scars, but the emotional ones begun long before.
The Africans were taken from their homes on various pretexts, never sure when and if they would return. Their pain was the input of goods enjoyed in Britain.
(via The Standard.co.zw)
Who benefitted? Did the Africans expect to be rewarded for their labour or lives? How are the fruits of labour to be divided?
The slave trade is estimated to have moved more than twelve million people across the Atlantic. Horrendous as this was, it does not fully measure the devastation left behind.
The slave trade encouraged conflict between the tribes. This conflict depopulated many villages and compromised the growing of crops essential to life in Africa.
European money replaced cowrie shells, and guns became central to the goods being traded. These guns broadened the conflict and encouraged the supply of human lives needed in the West.
But these people on the ships were not blank sheets. Their skills and expertise were being lost to their home villages. The vortex of poverty was set into motion.
The planters in the West needed these skills to make their plantations profitable. The Africans supplied artisans and craftsmen who knew how to produce textiles and could do metalwork.
They had honed agricultural techniques—and now this knowledge was being transferred without any cost over the price paid for the human.
The price for this technology transfer was zero. An unthinkable act in today’s economy was shamelessly perpetuated.
Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library
It was not that the planters or their markets did not know what was being done. It was that they did not care to disturb their comfort. They needed a reason to ignore their moral conscience.
Racial pseudoscience was developed, which created a hierarchy of races, with Black people at the bottom and White people at the top. Quite literally, the planters developed a colour chart of privilege.
But more than colour, there was a power shift. Before the Atlantic trade, European traders conducted commercial trade with African leaders. However, this trade did not deliver the quantities of labour required on the plantations.
All the world could not satisfy the appetite of the British and the French crowns.
Therefore, they created military alliances to generate wars and sought to enslave the captured persons.
“I verily believe that the far greater part of wars in Africa would cease if the Europeans would cease to tempt them by offering goods for sale. I believe the captives reserved for sale are fewer than the slain.” — John Newton, former slave ship captain.
Many of these enslaved persons had never seen the sea before. Ottobah Cugoano wrote of being snatched as a child playing on a field.
He described the slave ship: “There was nothing to be heard but the rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and the groans and cries of our fellow men. Some would not stir from the ground when they were lashed and beat in the most horrible manner.”
William Cowper, a British poet, wrote a poem that captures the ethos of the day:
“I own I am shocked at the purchase of slaves,/ And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves;/ What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans/ Is almost enough to draw pity from stones./ I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,/ For how could we do without sugar and rum?/ Especially sugar, so needful we see;/ What, give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea?”
He exposes the hypocrisy of bemoaning the fate of the Africans while enjoying the fruits of their labour. The torture, the groans and the pity did not empower him and his fellow Britishers to speak.
Doing so would mean giving up their lives of ease. He and his compatriots were not prepared to do so.
When we see Africa today, we should reflect on these events. The deep distrust between tribes/ nations has a long history engendered by the colonials.
We may be tempted to believe that it was a good thing that the slavers came. If we do, we are rejoicing in what we have but are not counting what has been lost.
We see children who are lost and do not know their history or future. We have been robbed of ourselves. We are dead. We have no rights, no culture, no religion. We cannot even think for ourselves.
We reject those who may offer any analyses of our condition. No context has been our fate.
The plunder continues with the mining of cobalt and other precious metals. We live on the dregs. We are mere vessels in the use of our masters. We have no dream of our own. We exist to fulfil the political dreams of others.
All of this has been wrought in the pursuit of money.
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