The Real History of the Black African Slave Trade. The U.S. Didn't Do It.

Two nights ago, Melania Trump mentioned in her Convention speech how much she was emotionally affected by her previous visit to Africa, which included Ghana on the west coast, an area where much of the slave trade occurred. One of the commentators on ABC, which we had been watching, pointed out the irony of her statement considering the present-day racial unrest. Let's review the bidding on the slave trade.

In the early 15th century, 70 years before Columbus, Portuguese seafarers started venturing into the Atlantic Ocean and found and occupied Madeira and Cape Verde islands off the west coast of Africa. They did not venture onto the continent itself, which had already been occupied by Muslim traders who had come down from North Africa. But eventually they did come into contact with these Muslims, some of whom were black Africans themselves who had adopted the Muslim religion and practices.

These Muslim traders introduced the Portuguese to black African slaves whom they purchased and put to work in their island colonies and even brought back to Europe. At the end of the 15th century, following up on Columbus's discovery, the Portuguese, and right behind them the Spaniards as well as the Dutch, went south and east across the Atlantic in massive numbers and occupied large areas of the Caribbean and South America, bringing more black African slaves with them, particularly for the very lucrative sugar cane business. Far more of the black slaves were brought to these areas than were ever transported to North America almost a century and a half later.

But how did this travesty of black African slavery come to be in the first place? How did the Muslim traders along the African coast obtain their captives? The fact is that they were captured, transported and sold by black Africans themselves who had a longstanding practice of enslaving captured enemies or even their own tribesmen who owed debts. Because of the new Portuguese market, they had found a lucrative business. To be sure, later the Portuguese themselves ventured from their coastal islands to the continent itself and participated in the capture of slaves, but the massive numbers to which the trade had evolved involved the full cooperation of the black Africans themselves.

The story is a lot more complex, but that's the essence of it. My point is that it's hypocritical for those who wish to castigate present day America because of its historical moral errors without their considering the complete history of the African slavery story. The whole episode would never have occurred except for the ancestors of our present-day Blacks and Hispanics. Those of us, who like myself, had early 20th century immigrant ancestors had not the slightest involvement. In fact, slavery, which was prevalent in the ancient world of Greece and Rome, was eventually declared to be an evil and put to an end by the early Catholic Church, only to reemerge centuries later as described above. History is important. It must be preserved and investigated and used as a guide. But the present is not the past and children must not be blamed for the sins of their fathers.

 

 

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