Historically, West
Africa is associated with the slave, gold and ivory trades, perhaps most often
the former. West Africa is also the place of origin of vodou, the only
indigenous African religion to survive the trans-Atlantic slave trade and
remain in practice in the Americas today. The historical roots of racial
discrimination in the United States today can be traced back to North American
slavery and the kidnapping of more than 20 million Africans. It is easily
assumed, therefore, that the African slave trade pit brutal, gun-wielding
European slaver traders against unsuspecting, passive African victims. While
the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, English and French slave traders were often
brutal, they were not always working alone -- many Africans were also complicit
in this victimization. Precolonial empires such as Dahomey and Ashanti (located in
what is now Benin and Ghana), where slave ports at Ouidah and Elmina flourished,
accumulated enormous wealth and power as a result of the trade of their fellow
Africans.
In fact, Europeans often
acted as junior partners to African rulers, merchants, and middlemen in the
slave trade along the West African coast from the mid-15th
century on. Two
factors contributed to this dependency: the coastal geography and the diseases
of West Africa. Seasonal wind patterns along the Atlantic coast of Africa
generated heavy surf and dangerous crosscurrents, which in turn buffeted a land
almost entirely lacking in natural harbors. Hazardous offshore reefs and
sandbars complicated the matter even further for seafarers along the West
African coast. European commerce in West Africa took place, therefore, most
often on ships anchored well away from shore and dependent on skilled African
canoe-men whose ability to negotiate across the hazardous stretch of water
between the mainland and the waiting ships made the Atlantic trade possible.
Even in places where Europeans were able to conduct trade on the mainland,
their presence was limited by an epidemiological situation that impeded their livelihood
and threatened their lives. Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, and other
diseases reduced the few Europeans living and trading along the West African
coast to a chronic state of ill health and earned Africa the name "white
man''s grave." In this environment, European merchants were rarely in a
position to call the shots.
Furthermore, when
Europeans first initiated a trading relationship with West Africans in the
mid-15th century they encountered well-established and highly-developed
political organizations and competitive regional commercial networks. Europeans
relied heavily on the African rulers and mercantile classes at whose mercy,
more often than not, they gained access to the commodities they desired.
European military technology was not effective enough to allow them this access
by means of force on a consistent basis until the 19th century. Therefore it
was most often Africans, especially those elite coastal rulers and merchants
who controlled the means of coastal and river navigation, under whose authority
and to whose advantage the Atlantic trade was conducted.
Domestic slave ownership
as well as domestic and international slave trades in western Africa preceded
the late 15th-century origins of the Atlantic slave trade. Since most West
African societies did not recognize private property in land,
slaves functioned
as one of the only profitable means of production individuals could own. West
Africans, therefore, acquired and expressed wealth in terms of dependent
people, whether as kin, clients, or slaves. Moreover, caravan routes had long
linked sub-Saharan African peoples with North Africa and the wider
Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds. Not only was slavery an established
institution in West Africa before European traders arrived, but Africans were
also involved in a trans-Saharan trade in slaves along these routes. African
rulers and merchants were thus able to tap into preexisting methods and
networks of enslavement to supply European demand for slaves. Enslavement was
most often a byproduct of local warfare, kidnapping, or the manipulation of
religious and judicial institutions. Military, political, and religious
authority within West Africa determined who controlled access to the Atlantic
slave trade. And some African elites, such as those in the Dahomey and Ashanti empires, took
advantage of this control and used it to their profit by enslaving and selling
other Africans to European traders.
It is important to
distinguish between European slavery and African slavery. In most cases,
slavery systems in Africa were more like indentured servitude in that the
slaves retained some rights and children born to slaves were generally born
free. The slaves could be released from servitude and join a family clan. In
contrast, European slaves were chattel, or property, who were stripped of their
rights. The cycle of slavery was perpetual; children of slaves would, by
default, also be slaves.
Although the historical
reality is sometimes difficult to accept by African Americans who still face
racial discrimination over a century after the abolition of slavery, African
complicity in the slave trade neither justifies today''s social problems nor
minimizes their seriousness. Fifteenth-century Africa, was not a homogenous
group of people. Some African elites benefited from the enslavement of their
rivals, their enemies, their poor, and other culturally foreign groups from the
15th century through the 18th and even into the 19th centuries. Class,
language, religion, gender, and ethnicity divided Africans, and it was along
these lines that certain Africans participated in the slave trade. Understanding
the dynamics of African complicity in the slave trade is important in
understanding Africans as historically active and diverse human beings. This
understanding should not detract from the horrors of the slave trade or from
its American legacy of inequality.