Did Africans Sell Other Africans Into Slavery?

What we can say definitively about this chapter in Africa’s history is that the slave trade was viewed by some Africans as a means of survival. In the words of Dutch historian Albert van Dantzig (1937-2000), who served as a history professor at the University of Ghana, “The simple truth [is] that it was better to sell than to be sold.”

Contrary to popular belief, African survival was not exclusively contingent upon European terms in the sense that all Africans were forced to participate in human trafficking in order to maintain good relations with Europeans. This was undoubtedly the case for many kingdoms and chieftainships in Central Africa early on and an overwhelming majority of West Africans as the trade progressed into the late 18th century. But for communities like Kongo, human trafficking provided for a certain amount of leverage in political affairs.

Profits were used to pay for commodities, to “return” tithes (in this context, literally “taxes” paid to the churches for religious services), to repay loans, and to cover the costs of tuition and board for the king’s relatives studying in Europe.

Apart from King Alfonso I’s (c. 1456-1542/3) 1514 letter to King John III (1502-1557) calling out the illegal un-Christian activities of Portuguese and Kongo merchants alike, there is scarcely any evidence that a desire to end the slave trade from within the continent was born purely out of moral considerations. Slave trading, even for Africans, was business as usual. Under pressure from European abolitionists in the early 19th century, many sovereigns defended the trade as a divine right and a cultural inheritance. It was only when the karma set in, when their actions came full circle, when members of their own family were dragged to the coasts, never to be seen again – THAT is when these simpletons snapped out of their stubborn stupor. They sent frantic pleas, they scrambled for spies, they paid ransoms. For some it was too late. Before they knew it, they found themselves strapped to the very ships they were stocking!

That is not to say African rulers did not exercise caution in their dealings with Europeans. Even in Kongo, there were royals who resisted the Portuguese. In 1528, Alfonso I threatened to banish them from his kingdom over the issue of slavery. Towards the end of his reign, he survived an attempt on his life by Portuguese assassins at his church. At one point, Garcia himself pushed for Kongolese “control” of the slave trade. His successor, António I, was dispatched in battle and beheaded by Portuguese authorities for his “insubordination.” Wary of a sudden surge in slave traffic, he had refused free passage to gold prospectors. Again, it was recorded that rebellious kings of Kongo were ‘punished’ in 1794.

That episode from 1640s Brazil was not the first or the last time that the people of Kongo enlisted help from a European army. When the Portuguese overturned Dutch dominance in the North, the Kongolese made concessions of land and riches in exchange for victory against Sonho. On the other side, their mortal enemies in Sonho joined themselves to the Dutch. It is also worth noting that Kongo was not the only nation in Africa to form alliances with European powers. Similar engagements were held a century before this between the British and the inhabitants of what is now Ghana and Sierra Leone. In addition to these alliances, some African kingdoms recruited European mercenaries in their armies.

The bottom line here is that there really were African empires that exploited the trade in an effort to consolidate power. The aim of all empires is expansion. This was true of Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Expansion was best implemented through the annihilation of competitors, the monopolization of commerce, and the acquisition of superior firepower.

Man’s inhumanity to man is ‘human nature‘ (said Sancho), and thus has it been since the dawn of civilization. As she considered the paradox of Africa’s role in the enslavement of her own people, Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) referred to ‘the universal nature of greed.’

Of course, that does NOT mean that we are any less accountable for our actions then as we are now. That does not absolve any party to the cruelties of slavery. What it DOES mean is that we have a responsibility to rectify past injustices as much as it is in our power to do so.

The call has gone out: Reparations Now. The nations of Europe and the Americas are being held to task with respect to their role in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. What about African monarchies, African noblesse, and African dynasties? What about the role that they played?

Guyanese poet Grace Nichols wrote that no mater how many times we try to ‘rinse the taste of treachery‘ from our mouths,