Hugh J. Curran Informed Comment
A syndicated journalist wrote: “It is …the story of African cruelty and greed: every African who left the continent as a slave was enslaved in Africa, by Africans….Many were sold across the Atlantic: – 10-12 million over 300 years”. Such assertions are not uncommon among apologists for the extreme cruelty of chattel slavery, yet they prefer to pass blame to the victims.
The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was different from other forms of slavery, while African slavery by Africans within Africa was the result of deep-rooted conflicts between communities who often spoke different languages. They did not think of themselves as “Africans” since there was no such thing as African identity, with over 2000 distinct languages separating them. Contrary to the apologists who attempt to blame Africans for the Atlantic slave trade, the reality is that those who were enslaved within Africa were eventually able to integrate into their new community while their children were not considered slaves, since it bore more kinship to “indentured servitude”.
The Trans-Atlantic slave trade appropriated slaves in West Africa, mostly in what was referred to as the “Slave Coast”. The Yoruba people of the Oyo Empire in West Africa were expanding in the 16th and 17th centuries and captives during their expansion were sold to Dutch and Portuguese slave traders.
It should be noted that the continent of Africa stretches from Egypt to the tip of South Africa, a distance of 7400 km. All of North America, China and Europe could easily be absorbed within this vast continent with its 54 sovereign nations and various ethnic groups, cultures and customs.
Among the initial slave traders were the Royal African Company from Bristol and Liverpool which funded and dominated the Atlantic slave trade. Their “triangular trade” needed financial capital to outfit ships to purchase slaves on the West Coast of Africa, often bartering with ammunition, guns and metalware. The financial payback for a shipload of slaves to Caribbean and American plantations could bring up to $800 per slave, so that, (in current value), a ship with 300 slaves could make a profit of $7- $9 million, despite a 10% mortality rate. In this triangular trade the ships travelled to English plantations in the Caribbean and American colonies, returning with sugar, tobacco and cotton.
The Liverpool Corporation, by the late 18th century, controlled 40% of the European slave trade, with one of the largest owners of slaves being Sir John Gladstone, father of PM William Gladstone, owning 2,508 slaves in Jamaica and Guyana. During a century of slave trading, the total number transported by Liverpool and Bristol merchants was estimated at two million African slaves.
To acquire slaves in West Africa, Europeans traded their weaponry to small nations in West Africa, playing one community off against another. If they refused this onerous commodification of people in exchange for weapons, they were left vulnerable to other African communities, creating a dangerous cycle of regional warfare. In other words, the demands of the transatlantic slave trade multiplied and intensified the need for slaves, while to meet the European demand for forced labor, communities such as the kingdom of Dahomey and the Ashanti Confederacy organized slave raiding expeditions into the interior for slaves in order to acquire firearms. The result was the erosion of social cohesion and the destruction of political structures in the communities they raided.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade emphasized maximizing profit which led to inhumane conditions on the ships transporting them to the “New World”. What was distinctly different from the Ottoman Slave trade was that, in Muslim societies, slaves were eventually assimilated, whereas in the America’s, due to racist ideology, children born to the enslaved remained slaves and were kept separate with no possibility of attaining freedom. They were bought and sold as “chattel slavery” in which Africans were treated as personal property of the plantation owner. “In the mind of white Americans at that time, to be enslaved was to be Black, and to be Black was to be enslaved”.
Within Africa itself this was not the case since black owners of black slaves could not use colour to distinguish the enslaved from the free. It has been said that “tens of millions of Africans lived and died as slaves over the centuries without ever leaving Africa” which is not an accurate observation since slaves were gradually assimilated into the communities that enslaved them.
Many communities refused to participate in enforced servitude. For instance, the “Kru People in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire fiercely resisted slave trading as did Queen Nzinga in Angola; In addition, the Fante People of Ghana forced colonists out of their region, as did the Wasulu in West Africa and the Umuchu in Nigeria who fought off slave raiders.
But there were distinct differences in the practice of slavery in Muslim countries even though some critics equated all forms of African slavery as similar. It was estimated that six to ten million people were enslaved by Muslim nations, mostly from East Africa and although their raiding to capture slaves was as cruel as the capture of slaves in West Africa, their long-term treatment of slaves was less cruel.
The largest slave-holders were in the Ottoman Empire where 1.3 million Africans were made captive during the 19th century. Of these, three times as many females were enslaved, primarily as domestic servants or concubinage. The well-educated were assigned to government administration. If they suffered abuse they could petition, under Islamic law, for redress. Over time, many of these enslaved were assimilated or manumitted (ie freed). It wasn’t uncommon for slaves or descendants of slaves to intermarry into the local population and especially, in the case of Arabs, the children of an Arab father and an enslaved mother would be considered part of the father’s tribe/ethnicity.” Besides this, if African slaves converted to Islam they were eventually freed.
Muslims were not allowed to enslave other Muslims. And in what was a distinct difference with Trans-Atlantic slavery, skin color did not legally define slaves. The Muslim religion encouraged freeing slaves as an act of piety, and children born to a master and a slave concubine were often born free. The Quran insists that the manumission (freeing) of slaves is regarded as a meritorious act and is recommended as an act of charity or expiation of sins”
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Wikipedia: “‘The Slave Ship,’ originally titled ‘Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhon coming on,’ is a painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner, first exhibited at The Royal Academy of Arts in 1840 . . .”
In contrast, in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade twice as many young men as women were chosen, primarily for field work. European colonial powers created, not only a hereditary system in which children born to slaves remained slaves, it also created a racialized system where black skin was equated with subhuman status.
It was to Britain’s credit that they passed two laws to end enslavement: the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. The 1807 Act banned trading or selling enslaved people in the British Empire whereas the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 made owning enslaved people illegal. Ironically, owners were compensated for the full “value” of their slaves by the government, but none of the 800,000 who were freed, were compensated in any way, while slave owners were awarded 17 billion pounds (in current value) from the government. Curiously enough, these loans were not fully paid off until 2015.
In March, 2026 a resolution was passed at the United Nations recognising slavery as “the greatest crime against humanity”-though the United States voted against the resolution and every European nation abstained…Ghana was asked by the African Union to be “champion for reparatory justice ”because 10-15% of the 12 million Africans who were forcibly removed from their homes and villages were taken from Ghana. Ghana’s Foreign Minister Ablakwa said that Ghana was the crime scene where atrocities took place, so Ghana cannot afford to be silent…and must hold perpetrators accountable.” Debt relief and debt cancellation were some of the demands for reparations.
It was noted in a BBC article that the Church of England owned slaves, made large investments in the slave trade and profited with considerable sums of money from it. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, “visited Cape Coast Castle, one of the many fortresses run by the British to hold enslaved people” She said she “felt the weight of the depth of evil that the transatlantic slave trade had been.”
Ablakwa rejected the argument that some Africans were complicit in the sale of their fellow people. He responded: “that there’s a strategy to divide and conquer and to create confusion…the entire architecture of chattel enslavement was curated by Western slave owning powers who utilized local people to carry out their plans”. He continued “we denounce and totally reject those claims that Africans are as guilty and complicit as those who masterminded this whole atrocity”.
A syndicated columnist concluded his article by quoting King Teiko Tsuru II, leader of Ghana’s Ga people: “I think that the transatlantic slave trade was the greatest crime against humanity and my ancestors also took part as player in that trade…It dawns on us to admit our fault and correct it”.
But King Teiko Tsuru II also said in an interview with the BBC on August 16, 2026, that, as leader of Ghana’s Ga people “he believes strongly in the need for those who benefited from the slave trade to pay reparations…I believe that it underpins a state of moral courage and credibility.” Although he, the Ga Mantse, admits fault: “it does not dilute the guilt of European empires”.
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