THE MYTH THAT AFRICANS ‘SOLD THEIR PEOPLE’

Europeans have attempted to distance themselves from - and avoid accountability for - their atrocities during the centuries-long slave trade by propelling narratives that it was Africans who sold them slaves. On this version, Africans share the blame for the horrors faced by Black people.

During his opening remarks on African identity and the decolonisation of education in Africa and the Caribbean at the University of West Indies in Jamaica, at the PJ Patterson Institute for Africa Caribbean Advocacy, vice chancellor Hilary Beckles spoke about the importance of reclaiming our narratives. As Beckles puts it, when history is told from the gunman's perspective, you inevitably get a distorted picture.

Beckles dispels the myth that Africans willingly sold their fellow Africans into slavery. While he notes that there were certainly corrupt individuals back then, just as there are now, they were a minority. In Nazi Germany, for example, there were Jewish people who collaborated with the regime, yet no one blames them for the Holocaust. So why is this the line of argument used when it comes to slavery?

Most Africans who took part in the slave trade did so for survival and did not have much of a choice. When European narratives paint our ancestors as 'business partners,' it is misleading - a business partner is free to not partake in a business venture without consequences, whereas Africans were not.

Moreover, Europeans exacerbated divisions amongst our people, spurring ethnic conflict and wars amongst Africans. It was often ‘prisoners of war’ who were bought by Europeans from Africans.

The European narrative has been used to further divide Black people across the world, thus continuing the divide-and-conquer tactics that have ensured African disunity and exploitation for centuries.

Sources

https://books.google.co.ke/books/about/African_Voices_of_the_Atlantic_Slave_Tra.html?id=YrIjNMu5_vsC&redir_esc=y

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/blacks-did-not-sell-blacks-into-slavery

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/hitlers-jewish-soldiers/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/myths-and-misconceptions_b_9637798

https://archives.newsday.co.tt/2014/08/01/debunking-myths-of-the-slave-trade/

theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/us-played-key-role-in-southern-sudans-long-journey-to-independence/241660/