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Stealing Or Brute Force Did Not Work

"The first Europeans to sail down Africa’s west coast in the mid-15th century attempted to steal Africans from their homes. Several violent confrontations showed Africans’ strength, however, and African boycotts proved how dependent Europeans were for such necessities as food and water. It became evident that the only practical way to obtain slaves or other commodities was to bring items the residents wanted in exchange. Within a short time, Europeans and Africans established a systematic way of trading that changed little over several centuries.” (Donald R. Wright)

This does not address the issue of who started the trade. Let us consider a theoretical scenario. The European meets the African King or chief for the first time. He could not have said, “Good day sir, I wish to buy some slaves” on the first day. Nor could the chief have introduced the topic by simply saying, “By the way, I have some slaves that you could buy.” What likely happened was that the Europeans and the African kings exchanged gifts over a period of time. The African king offered ivory or some other heavy items as gifts in exchange for coral beads, manufactured commodities, etc. They needed a means for transporting them to the ships. Since Africans had not invented a cart or wheelbarrow of sorts, and the system of cartage being the human head, the slaves were the logical means of conveying the gifts to the ships. It does not require any special talent to deduce that the slaves were offered as part of the gifts to be taken along to Portugal or Europe.

The Europeans found them to be so dutiful, strong as labor force, and efficient in carrying out orders that the Europeans just had to come for more. Not only coming for more, they invested in formulating a market. They built facilities and workforce to actualize and sustain the slave trade. The triangular trade followed as a matter of course. “The Atlantic slave trade became part of a prosperous trading cycle known as the triangular trade. In the first leg of the triangle, European merchants purchased African slaves with commodities manufactured in Europe or imported from European colonies in Asia. They then sold the slaves in the Caribbean and purchased such easily transportable commodities as sugar, cotton, and tobacco. Finally the merchants would sell these goods in Europe and North America. They would use the profits from these sales to purchase more goods to trade in Africa, continuing the trading cycle.” (ibid)

Who to blame for starting the slave trade? I don’t know. Maybe they were the African Kings and Chiefs; maybe it was the SOCIETY; and maybe it was culture. I leave the verdict to you. It would not make any difference, which the individual was that sold or bought the very first slave. The prevailing cultural (especially religious) conditions that made the transaction possible should interest us if the same history should not repeat itself. Are the conditions of African society different today from what it was in the 1500s? If they are still the same, how do we change the conditions? These are the real challenging issues which the scholars seem to be overlooking.

We need to study the Primordial Causes Of Slavery more closely. Relationships between Religion, Slavery, Chieftaincy, Priesthood, Kingship, initiation, and power – economic and otherwise – need to be addressed as we are doing at FCW (Faboul Cownic Worldwide).