A lot of people think the chiefs were selling their subjects. In the beginning, decisions [were made] regarding bad characters. When selling came in, society got to know that it was anybody being sold.
Togbui (Paramount Chief) Adeladza, Anlo Ga
In my almost fifteen years of working in this field, after every talk or reading of my work in various venues in the United States and abroad, one question invariably dominates any ensuing discussion: Why did Africans sell other Africans into slavery? The incident at Atorkor and the fact of Chief Ndorkutsu’s trading relationships with European slavers clearly raise this question. It is a vexing question asked by many—not only descendants of Africa in the African Diaspora, not only historians of slavery and the slave trade—but by all who seek answers to some of the great tragedies of human history. For some, there is a sense that if we could answer this question, we could somehow understand motives and assign responsibility, if not blame, for this awful era. For others, in particular Diasporan communities whose heritage has been shaped by these events, there is a sense that the answer to this question would facilitate reconciliation with their African past. It is as if this question is a bridge—a bridge that one must cross in order to make sense of realities past and present. Still, beyond the actual and concrete details of the answer lie a wordless longing and a determined search for a scattered identity.
The answer is by no means a simple one. The reality is that in an era of shifting allegiances, fierce competition on land and on the high seas, sporadic and sustained conflicts, a diversity of players moving in and out of the trade, much of the slave-trade era reads like a spy novel or a suspense thriller whose ending is unclear. It is also often unclear through much of this period who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys.” Such was the complexity of this era. What we can say, however, in partial answer to the question, is that the fact of the dual involvement of Europeans and Africans in the slave trade did not imply equal partnership but rather parallel lines of activity originating from different cultural and political spaces. The simple fact also that no European was ever enslaved on a plantation in the Americas refutes this notion of equal partnership. We can also say that the answer to this question depends on the particular period of the slave-trade era. The operations of the slave trade varied greatly depending on the period. As evidenced by the Atorkor kidnapping incident and other random kidnapping incidents of the nineteenth century, many of these African traders, even the most influential and powerful among them, often found themselves, like their captives, in insecure and precarious positions.
Still, before a thorough review can be undertaken, the question itself is worthy of interrogation. Embedded within it are several faulty assumptions. First, there is the assumption that during the era of the slave trade Africans conceived of themselves as one people and one continent as opposed to numerous communities large and small. The fact is that Africa became a continental force only in the modern era. Ironically, before the onset of the transatlantic slave trade in the fifteenth century and through much of the ensuing centuries, the many regions of Africa—North, South, East, and West—though interconnected by trade, the spread of religion, and constant intercontinental migration, these regions and communities were largely distinct and separate from one another.1 The Sudanic kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay in West Africa, for example, had little or nothing to do with the great stone kingdoms of Zimbabwe in southern Africa, which thrived from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Diversity was, as it still is today, great, and the sheer expanse of the continent allowed for many communities to live in relative isolation from each other and sometimes even without knowledge of the other’s existence.
At the same time, African notions of community even within the same ethnic group were often complex. As we see in the Anlo Ewe example in the incident at Atorkor and also later in this chapter, Ewes on the coast were not averse to selling Ewes from the interior. Notions of community often did not extend beyond a group of villages or towns in a particular area. The ties that bound these communities were clan and kinship networks more than language and customs. In other words, kinship networks were a major determinant of social behavior, even including the way people engaged the institution of slavery.2
Many slaves, though not all, had the opportunity to become a part of the master’s kinship network and so could enjoy some of the privileges of the family.3 Whereas this was doubtless true for many domestic slaves, the fact is that many oral accounts, as shown above, still testify to a stigma associated with this status even in cases where slaves were fully integrated into their master’s family through marriage or childbirth. In this regard, one of my informants in the Volta region spoke of his ancestor’s marriage to one of these domestic slaves in the nineteenth century. Even today, this line of the family is still quietly associated with slavery, although its members have long been integrated into the family. As a result, it is almost a crime to say to someone in Ewe, “Togbuiwo nye amefefleor Mamawo nye amefefle” (They bought your grandfather or they bought your grandmother). From the Cape Coast side there are similar stories: “Slavery is always talked about in secrecy. The person [accused] would take you to traditional court and you will be asked to prove beyond reasonable doubt the origin of the person.” It was not uncommon, according to one informant, for chiefs when they meet to sometimes quietly say, “Oh, don’t mind this guy, his grandfather was bought by my grandfather.”4
I contend that though the concept of clan and kinship networks has the appearance of being inclusive, it paradoxically is also a way of excluding others. It is a way of saying, “These are our kin, and then there are others.” These are two diametrically different communities, and methods of behavior in and between them are often completely different. This was certainly the reality of the slave-trade era, and some would argue that remnants of this tradition are still strong today.
The modern concept of Pan-Africanism—or the unity of the African continent and its Diaspora—germinated from the political philosophy of Trinidadian George Padmore (1901–59, The International African Opinion), Jamaica-born Marcus Garvey, and African American scholar and activist W. E. B. DuBois. Pan-Africanism was concretized by Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana, which was the first colony to gain its independence from Europe, in 1957.5 Pan-Africanism today, however, is still very much an ideal that has yet to come to full fruition. The new African Union, founded in 1999 as a successor to the Organization of African States and set up to promote greater social, political, and particularly economic cooperation among African states, has made some progress in its drive to promote an African Renaissance.6 Still, the Pan-Africanism that was promoted by DuBois, Nkrumah, and others—which envisioned an Africa that did not divide itself along ethnic lines—is not evident in many places today (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, the Côte d’Ivoire, to name a few recent examples at the time of this writing). If such unity beyond ethnic and language barriers does not exist today, we can only imagine the climate of yesterday, which is the reason that such a question—why did Africans sell each other into slavery—needs to be greatly problematized.
This question is also faulty as stated because it assumes that Africans had exclusive control over the supply of slaves on the coast and over slave-trade operations in general. It assumes wrongly that no slave was ever kidnapped by European nationals, when in fact kidnapping played a major role in the early stages of the slave trade in the fifteenth century and then again in the last phase of its operation in the nineteenth century—arguably one of its peaks. As such, the question itself is one-sided. It speaks of the agency of Africans without reference to the agency of Europeans and Americans, which will be explored in part in this chapter and in greater depth in others. The fact is that European and American nationals played a critical role in the operations of the Atlantic slave trade on four continents in six legs of the trade, including the persistent demand for labor in the New World and the willingness to meet this demand by any means. And so the shared responsibility for this catastrophe is not evident in the very question itself.
Finally, there is another assumption that is often made when this question is asked: Why did chiefs sell their subjects to these white traders? As shall be seen in this chapter, not all chiefs were slave traders, and not all slave traders were chiefs. Depending on the period, the size of the community, and the depth and level of trade, there was a diverse group of people involved in transatlantic slave-trade operations. In the Anlo Ewe example, which we will examine in detail, some local chiefs had to jostle with individual rogue traders who in many ways threatened their power bases. In the case of the larger Asante kingdom, on the other hand, power was much more concentrated in the hands of the king and his appointees.
Such are the popular misconceptions regarding the slave trade. These are due to many factors. First, it should be said that historians from W. E. B. DuBois to more recent authors Edward Reynolds, Boubacar Barry, Paul Lovejoy, Patrick Manning, and others—have provided a broader context to the answer to this question in the ongoing body of research on the slave trade. But much of this work, though celebrated and appreciated in academic circles, has not penetrated the perceptions of the general public. Some of this work, like the important research of John Thornton in Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, suggests that Africans were equal partners with Europeans in the transatlantic system. But to see Africans as partners implies equal terms and equal influence on the global and intercontinental processes of the trade. This was simply not the case. Africans had great influence on the processes of enslavement on the continent itself, but they had no direct influence on the engines behind the trade in the capital firms, the shipping and insurance companies of Europe and America, or on the plantation system in the Americas. Likewise, they did not wield any influence on the budding manufacturing centers of the West. Furthermore, this influence on the continent was by no means an exclusive one, as evidenced by the presence of over fifty European-built and -manned slave forts and castles in Ghana alone. Finally, even Thornton’s own research and analysis of the range of small- and large-scale kingdoms in Africa at the time suggests that equal partnership between Europeans and Africans was not possible. As he shows in the following excerpt: “In all, only perhaps 30 per cent of Atlantic Africa’s area was occupied by states with a surface area larger than 50,000 square kilometers and at least half of that area was occupied by states in the medium sized range (50,000–150,000). The rest of Atlantic Africa was occupied by small even tiny states.”7
Given the different makeup of communities and kingdoms on the continent, African agency could not have meant the same thing for all these societies. Furthermore, the effects of the trade were different on these groups in part because of their difference in size and organization. Large-scale kingdoms (few as they were at the time) like the Asante kingdom, the Akwamus, or the kingdom of Benin were in a position to exercise some control over slave supply, but the majority of the communities in Africa at that time—small-scale societies, like the Ewes—were not in exclusive control of their fates. For example, early in the slave-trade era in the fifteenth century, the oba (king) of Benin was able to maintain a certain control over his end of the trade. He dictated his terms to the Europeans on which he wanted to trade. These terms initially involved trading in pepper and other products. Even later, with the trade in slaves, the oba opened and closed the market at will. This he did because in his quest for more territory, he needed to retain a large male population. At one point the oba put a total embargo on male slaves, which continued well into the seventeenth century. He was able to dictate trading policy in part because of his control over specialized trading associations in the kingdom. Finally, this control allowed him to maintain balance among these associations. All this was clearly possible because of the centralizing nature of power resident in the oba’s position in the Benin kingdom.8
Another reason for misconceptions about this issue has to do with the sparse treatment of slavery and the slave trade in American and African textbooks. A cursory look at popular history texts in the United States shows that Africa in general is not a high priority even in world history courses. The same is true in American history texts.9 In spite of some changes and additions in recent years, the subject is still relegated to a few paragraphs, without the richness, complexity, and sensitivity needed to explore this period.
Finally, these limited perceptions are also the result of documentaries and films on the subject of slavery. Though it can be said that there has been marked interest in the subject since the enthusiastic public reception of television series Roots in 1976 and intermittently since then, there is still much room for improvement in the way the subject is treated. Even well-researched films like Spielberg’s Amistad (1997) used simple flashbacks to make references to the initial capture in Africa of Cinque, the rebel slave leader and main protagonist, without giving the audience a sense of the full context of this capture. The travel documentary Wonders of the African World, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. has also made an important contribution to this field by placing Africa at the center stage of world history with captivating shots of places and events and enlightening interviews with diverse parties.
The problem here as elsewhere is that this series asks the question regarding African involvement in the slave trade but does not fully answer it in terms of pointing out the intense pressures of European demand for free labor as well as the continental forces behind such pressures. Europe, unlike Africa, was united in its desire for this labor to settle and develop the Americas and to bring European nations into the mercantile powers they are today. In fact, economists of the day revealed that up to 36 percent of Britain’s commercial profits in the seventeenth century—that is, more than one-third—was due to the triangular trade and the indispensable contribution of slaves and their labor.10 To acknowledge the role of the kingdoms of the Asante and the Dahomeans in the trade as was done in Gates’s series is a worthy and important effort, but without addressing issues of European agency in like detail as well as discussing African resistance to the trade in the same conversation, viewers are left with more questions than answers.
So what is the answer to this question of African involvement, and how does the Ewe example provide a window into this issue? How do the few stories that are still told along the Atlantic coast of Ghana provide pieces to a puzzle previously hidden or misunderstood? If the above represents a brief outline of the misconceptions and the reasons behind them, what were the realities of African involvement in the slave trade?
The fact of the dual involvement of Europeans and Africans in the slave trade, at least in the Ewe example, did not imply equal partnership but rather parallel lines of activity originating from different cultural and political spaces. The best evidence to support this claim comes from the fact that one of the region’s most important slave traders—Geraldo de Lima—was imprisoned by European officials for part of this period. Other traders were obliged to continually move their bases from one town to another to avoid suppression, so much so that one author has called their pursuits one of “pluck and risk.”11 Such events in the nineteenth century exposed the essential vulnerability of African trading efforts, as any systems that may have previously been in place broke down in the face of external interests.
Another major point is the fact that involvement in the slave trade differed greatly depending on the period. There were several transformations of the slave trade from its beginning in the late fifteenth century to its slow end in the nineteenth. The Anlo Ewe example demonstrates this well. Finally, the larger context of slave trading in Ghana is important as a means of seeing how the activities of the Anlo Ewe on the southeastern coast fit into the broader picture.
At first glance, oral traditions do not say much about slave supply on the Anlo Ewe coast. Much of the information available is about slave traders, and there is very little on the slaves themselves. Important traditions, however, have been collected by Reindorf, Aduamah, and more recently Ghanaian sociologist G. K. Nukunya that do reveal some general information about slave-supply activities on the Anlo coast. Such traditions suggest that slave traders were rich men who in some cases possessed important stools. (Stools are the actual and symbolic representation of political power, usually chieftaincy positions. Stoolhouse refers to the seat of power, so to speak, and the actual place where the chief presides over his court.) Still, the community seemed to have an ambivalent reaction to these men. On the one hand they were regarded with a certain respect. As an Ewe proverb confirms: “Wealth commands respect.”12 On the other hand they were feared and thought to be hard, if not evil, men. One of the prayers and libations recorded at Tagba Xevi, an Ewe traditional area, goes as follows:
And I salute you ablotsu, the uneasy to handle one
I do not know which is male
I do not know which is female.13
Ablotsu refers to a stool possessed by slave dealers. This passage is said to mean that these were men who drove a hard bargain. Other references to the wealth and status of slave dealers are to be found in the oral account of the stoolhouse at Denu. The ancestor of this town is known as Baku. According to the description of the stoolhouse: “The other stool according to the elders was made by Baku’s grandson, Ayivor Akposoe as a mark of his wealth which he had acquired by the slave trade. He was installed on the stool as the first chief of Denu soon after ‘the Aguedzigo war.’ Akposoe’s stool bears a string of thirty six cowries all blackened and decaying due to exposure of weather.”14 No doubt these cowries were representative of his wealth and status, as is also evidenced by one of the oral traditions of this study that describes the stoolhouse of the slave trader, Antonio of Woe. His cowries represented not only his wealth but the number of slaves in his household.15
Still, most of what has been collected on the subject is about those who profited from slavery and not about the slaves themselves. This is understandable since the majority of the slaves would have been taken from the interior and the Anlo territory is along the coast. Nukunya’s “A Note on Anlo Ewe Slavery and the History of a Slave” is one exception. Here he tells the story of a slave girl, originally from Krobo territory, who was kidnapped by Anlo raiders and taken to the slave town of Woe on the coast. Her capture took place well after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. She was captured in the 1890s, which is again suggestive of the idiosyncratic and arbitrary nature of the slave trade in this period. Her story also suggests that slaves were largely incorporated into the general society. When after puberty her owner wanted her to become one of his wives, she said, “How can I marry one who said that he would be like a father to me?” In fact, she had become part of her owner’s descent group and had subsequently declined to discuss her origins even with her own children. Also remarkably, she did not return to her original home even though it was not a great distance away.16
In my recent collection of oral histories in the Volta region, I heard similarly amazing stories from informants about slaves in the family. Given the sensitivity of this issue it would be inappropriate to name specific names, but in two significant cases two interviewees told me that their relatives had bought slaves and then subsequently married them, thereby integrating them into the family. This information, it should be noted, was not offered early in the interviewing process but only after repeated visits—in one case after several years. One interviewee confessed that her ancestor of the same name had bought and married her aunt’s mother. This was a subject, she admitted, that no one freely discussed. As she said, “They can harm you if you are calling them slave descendants.”
Another prominent informant in the area also confessed, after several conversations and interactions, that indeed his ancestor, a chief, had bought and married a slave from Agortime Kpetoe Afegame, a town near Ho, the center of the inland Ewe-speaking region. This woman became one of the sixteen wives of the chief and was given a new name by her husband. According to those who knew her, she was a tall woman indistinguishable from other women in the area except for a certain mark on her face that displayed her origin. Interestingly, the informant said that he had learned from his mother that it was her sister who had consulted a local shrine called Fofui to find out why the family was at that time having certain problems. The priest of the shrine then revealed to them that their ancestor was originally brought as a slave from the Ho area. Family representatives subsequently visited the town of Agortime Kpetoe Afegame and poured libations as a way of making reconciliation with the past. The informant then said that as a consequence of this event, things improved for the family. Also of interest about this story was the fact that other family members, including a younger relative who was present at the time of my interview, were not aware of having slaves in the family—yet another testimony as to the secrecy surrounding such origins.17
These admissions regarding slave heritage were remarkable in that it is rarely the case in Ghana that anyone confesses to having slave ancestry. Ironically, it is much more permissable to confess to some connection to slave traders—but an absolute taboo to mention slave ancestry. This made these admissions all the more phenomenal given the past and current discomfort with raising this issue publicly.
Slavery and the slave trade were not the same in every period of the Anlo’s past. In fact, by the nineteenth century, according to oral traditions and other sources, the slave trade on the Anlo coast had undergone a number of transformations.18 It can be said that there were four distinct stages of the Atlantic slave trade along the Anlo coast. The first stage, in the seventeenth century, was characterized by very little activity. The Dutch trader Bosman recorded in his visit in 1698 regarding “the land of Coto” (Keta): “Their trade is that of slaves, of which they are able to deliver a good number but yet not so many to lade a ship. . . . By reason their Trade is small they are very poor; very few of them being rich.”19 He goes on to contrast the trading pursuits of Keta with those of Popo (farther along the coast) praising the inhabitants of the latter for their ability to “rob more successfully and consequently by that means encrease their trade.”20 Still, in spite of this activity, Bosman, found that filling a ship required months of waiting. For that reason, he appears to have found more ample trading activity at Whydah (Dahomey) in the seventeenth century.21 Further evidence of the relatively few numbers of slaves that were garnered from this area in the seventeenth century comes from Bosman’s statements about the other resources in the area: “This land is tolerably provided with cattle, at least as many as are sufficient to supply its inhabitants. . . . River fish is not wanting here, but they can get none out of the sea by reason of the violent burnings which extends from this place to Accra and farther along the whole coast.”22
It is clear, then, that cattle breeding and fishing in the Volta and Mona rivers as well as the Keta Lagoon were sufficient occupations for the Anlo people. We know also from other sources that the farming of sorghum, millet, sweet potatoes, and bambara groundnuts also formed an important part of the community’s staple diet.23 They were self-sufficient but not wealthy.
The second distinct period of the slave trade in this area is associated with the domination of the Akwamu state over Anlo territory from 1702 to 1730. Akwamu rose to become an imperial power in the second half of the seventeenth century. European records (Barbot and Romer) comment on the Akwamus’s famous attack on Greater Accra, Ghana’s current capital, in 1687.24 Long before its domination of Anlo territory, the Akwamu state had an expansionist policy and ruled over the modern-day Akwapim and as far east as Larteh. Constantly seeking more territory and power, the Akwamus engaged in many wars and conflicts with their neighbors and even expanded their powers as far east as Dahomey under the leadership of Ado.25 In Akwamu even today there is a song on the drums that records these exploits: “Woadi Dahome ade ammeewo?” In the Twi language, this means: “You have eaten Dahomey and it hasn’t satisfied you.”26
The Anlos, because of their tributary relationship with the Akwamus, were also on hand in these pursuits. These quarrels, however, were not exclusively about control over the slave trade. For example, they fought over possession of lands at the mouth of the Volta River in their quest for exclusive access to the salt lakes. Still, the Akwamus’s expansionist policies led them to raid for slaves, and to that extent, they drew on the assistance of the Anlos. Raiding of the Krepi states (small Ewe states to the north) took place during this period, when slaves would regularly be deposited at the Keta slave market for sale.27 It is also worth noting that the Akwamu state during this period formed a strong alliance with the Asante that was to last many years. This was significant in that the Asante state, as will be discussed in greater detail later, was to become a major player in the slave trade in the years that followed.28
The next period, 1730–1830, represents perhaps the beginning of an organized process of slave supply along the Anlo coast. Not coincidentally, this period was also a time of increased European presence. It was during this phase that European forts were established in the area, including Fort Prinzenstein at Keta in 1784.29 According to the tour guide of the now renovated fort, James Ocloo, “victims were marched to Atorkor and Adina markets, and then marched on foot to the fort to await transport.” Though Fort Prinzenstein does not have the same commanding presence of Cape Coast Castle or Elmina Castle, the basic setup of the fort is similar. It has the same narrow, windowless stone dungeons for males and females respectively as well as a place for the residence of the European agents of the fort. These residences conveniently overlooked bathing sites where slave women were forced to bathe in the open. There are also rooms for incoming cargo and trade items such as guns, ammunition, and liquor. Though relatively small in size, the structure of the fort is the same as its larger counterparts.30
Fort Prinzenstein, Keta, Ghana, built by the Danes in 1784.
Photo: James O’Neill.
There was, then, a correlation between European intervention and level of trade. During periods of little European intervention, as in the seventeenth century, there was not much transatlantic trading in this area, but with increased European intervention in the eighteenth century, there was organized and systematic trading on both ends. It would appear that one of the principal motivations to sell slaves came directly from the European presence on the coast. In other words, Europeans did not make Africans sell slaves, but their persistent efforts on the coast intensified slave traffic. As seen in the accounts of Bosman and others, traders were prepared to wait months for the successful loading of their ships. Even John Newton, author of the famous hymn “Amazing Grace,” when he retired from his life as a slave trader confessed, “I verily believe that the far greater part of wars in Africa would cease if the Europeans would cease to tempt them by offering goods for slaves.”31 Other authors have likened the European presence to a disease that was brought to the continent, wreaking havoc on its institutions.32 My preferred analogy, given that a trade in human beings, though marginal, did exist prior to European arrival, is to view the European and American presence as a match that was lit to bits of paper on the African coast. Once lit, it became a fire. If there had been no match, perhaps there would have been no fire.
The other factor to consider here is whether or not the overwhelming demand for slaves sufficiently obscured other occupations that had previously been important in the area.33 According to evidence given by Chief Akolatse to the Crowther Commission in the early twentieth century: “There was no work, we had to sell slaves.”34 This statement by itself is not conclusive about the state of other occupations at the time, but it does suggest that slave trading, coinciding as it did with an increased European presence on the coast, took on a more dominant role. And so it was that in the one hundred years between the time that Bosman visited the coast and this period, the dominant activity had shifted from cattle, farming, and fishing to include a heavy emphasis on slave trading.
Still, this is where the level of organization and systemization began and ended—in the one hundred years after the end of Akwamu domination over the Anlo. This century, when the Anlo as a people were more free to determine their own political and economic agendas, represents the most organized period of slave supply. Finally, we see a very different picture in the nineteenth century. The Danes in 1792 abolished the slave trade, and the British did the same in 1807.
The last phase of the Atlantic trade in the nineteenth century, beginning in 1830, represented an unprecedented growth in slave-trading activities.35 This phase on the Anlo coast was dominated by a small group of individual traders, some of whom enjoyed limited partnerships. In many ways, their organization mirrored the organization of Ewe society in general—small groups of semiautonomous entities without a major centralizing force. These traders often had strong connections to Europeans and largely operated independently of one another. Even at the height of their activities, they did not engage in large-scale partnerships as was the case with their European counterparts. At the same time, they increasingly found themselves subject to the intense suppression efforts of the English and the Danes during this period. Finally, as evidenced by the Atorkor kidnapping incident and other random kidnapping incidents that will be discussed, many of these traders, like their captives, found themselves in uncertain and vulnerable positions.
Chief Ndorkutsu of Atorkor perhaps best represents the end of the most organized period of trade along the Ewe coast. According to the testimony of Ndorkutsu’s descendant, there was an established trade route, with stations at Atito, Alakple, and Hatorgodo, among others. The chief had agents at these stations who would stay three or four days till they received enough slaves and brought them to the coast. On the coast itself they were kept in the “big house” while awaiting the arrival of European and American trading vessels. Ndorkutsu worked largely alone or in limited partnerships with his brother, Chief Gbele, and later his nephew Kumodji of nearby Srogbe.36 The slaves were obtained from the interior—from Krepi and beyond—where slaves were exchanged for salt from the coast. The slave trade was fed by a network of trade routes that linked various parts of the Ewe territory with one another. The main route from Keta northward up to Salaga and Kebou went from Sadame on the Keta Lagoon into Adaklu at Toda, and thence through Waya to Peki, Ho, Kpando, Nkonya, and Buem to Salaga. KetaKratchi, Salaga, and Atakpame were important salt-slave centers.37
Another limited partnership that characterized this period existed between the traders Doe and Afedima of the town of Woe. Both were of the Anatsi family. According to oral sources, Afedima was known for her fishing ventures along the coast and was in need of many laborers to help her in her efforts. “She had both domestic slaves and others whom she sold.” So her business efforts also brought her into contact with the Atlantic system. In fact, it is clear from the record that she was to some extent on an equal footing with her European counterparts in this end of the system. “She dealt a lot with the Danes and Portuguese and other European traders and even got married to one of them, who took her to Europe and she came back alone. . . . When she came back she was the first person to own a European fishing net.”38 According to other sources, it was Afedima, along with a man called John Tay, that introduced the seine net, also known as yevudor, in the mid-nineteenth century (yevu refers to white in Ewe). This net did much to increase Anlo fishing ventures.39 Doe was said to have brought the Yewe god from Dahomey; this he used to acquire slaves for sale on the open market.40
The European that Afedima married was reportedly Don Jose Mora—an important trader in his own right. He is referred to most often as a Spaniard.41 His Ewe name is Adohose. Oral histories and European records (particularly the Danish records) attest to his activities in the middle of the nineteenth century. In the Anlo area he was based at Woe, where he had close associations with the Chief Gbodzo.42 Mora was known for being extremely persistent in his pursuit of the trade, thereby frustrating Danish attempts at suppression. Governor Carstensen in his diary tracked his activities in several places: “Mora had been at Vay [Woe] to where a North American vessel laded with goods had brought him from Havana.” In another entry in October 1842, he pinpoints Woe as a hotbed of slave dealing activity: “During the last decade, especially the towns of Atorkor and Vay have called for strict measures especially because of the stay there of the Spaniard Mora—a man who like at present de Sawa at Whydah, persistently resisted the measures which again and again were taken against his unlawful trade.”43
Mora is an excellent example of the complicated nature of African agency as it relates to activities on the coast. What we see here is a European who established his residence on the coast and was so active in the acquisition of slaves that he is often discussed in the context of African traders. Though we know few details about his association by marriage to the African trader Afedima, it is likely that this association gave him a certain access to the community he might not otherwise have had. At the same time, this close association with African traders by marriage, residence, and common activities also had its costs. He ended up being subject to some of the same constraints placed on African traders at this time. Like the other African traders of this period, he was obliged to keep moving his base of operations to avoid suppression efforts by Europeans on the coast. He moved alternatively from Woe, Blekusu, and Atorkor.44 Such was his kinship with the community that it was said of him and others like him: “The natives obstructed the Danes from capturing these daring individuals. Danish threats and suspending of payments to local chiefs were of no avail.”45 Time and again, the record shows that he was helped by the Anlos in concealing his slave bounty as he was pursued by European officials.46
Chief Gbodzo of Woe, closely associated with Mora, also played an important role in this period. He had apportioned areas where he assembled the slaves on the seashore and another further in the interior. “Whenever a slave ship arrived, a cannon was fired, and the other station will answer with firing of a cannon, too.”47 Then the shackled slaves were brought to the shore to be sold. During one of my research trips to the coast I was shown some of these shackles. Regarding the origin of these slaves, it is further said that: “In the Anlo area, whenever there were disobedient people or people who behaved criminally, they were got rid of by selling them to the Danes along the coast together with palm kernel. . . . Well, they knew that slaves were being sold along the coast, so any criminals or disobedient people were brought down from the interior [all over the Volta region].”48
These key figures notwithstanding, perhaps the slave trader who best represents the trade at this time was Geraldo de Lima. Geraldo was originally from Agoue in Dahomey. His given name was Adzoviehlo Attiogbe. According to the oral accounts he was educated by his father at Grand Popo.49 In his early days as a trader he operated in the Whydah and Agoue areas. By the 1850s he joined the employ of an established slave trader in Anlo called Cosar Cequira Geraldo de Lima.50 They worked from a base at Vodza, where Attiogbe help trade local and European products for slaves.51 Geraldo was like many of the Brazilian-born traders who had for years done business not only along the Ewe coast but also along the coast in Dahomey. Some of these traders were former slaves who took advantage of opportunities to return to their homeland. They then set up along the coast and actively pursued the most booming business of the day: the trade in slaves. In Dahomey Geraldo’s counterparts were Dom Francisco, Domingos Jose Martin, and Joaquim D’Almeida.52
As a result of his increasingly close association with the Brazilian de Lima and the growth of their business ventures, Attiogbe became the natural successor to his employer when de Lima died in 1862. Not only did he take over his employer’s personal and business affairs, he also assumed his name: henceforth, he was known as Geraldo de Lima.53 His reasons for doing this were unclear, but it is ironic that an African trader on the continent assumed the name of a slave trader by choice when Africans in the New World were forced to give up their African names in exchange for European ones. In any event, as his trading efforts continued to thrive he diversified into trading palm oil products, cotton materials, tobacco, guns, gunpowder, and liquor.54 He added greatly to his wealth and reputation to such an extent that the Anlos both revered and feared him. It is for this reason that when asked about the slave traders in the area, his name was often the first answer given by informants.55
Some of the oral histories reveal that the chiefs and traditional priests did indeed have a certain respect for Geraldo. “They only sit down quietly and show him respect since he was a war captain.”56 However, some authors have suggested that any support he received from the Anlo establishment was based on self-interest. When it was useful to be associated with one of the wealthiest men of the day, Anlos embraced such an association. When it was more useful to consider him an outsider, they did so.57 In general, it can be said that while he inspired simultaneous fear and respect from the populace, his relationship with the local chiefs depended on their allegiances.58 Those that were allied with the British were naturally Geraldo’s enemies. Those who had strong trading interests that coincided with those of Geraldo supported or at least tolerated him.
Another bit of evidence regarding his close relationship with the Anlos is his association with supernatural powers and phenomena. In this respect he is treated like other important figures in the community.59 Again, the oral histories strongly corroborate his supernatural gifts. His eighty-odd-year-old granddaughter, Lucy Geraldo revealed in a 1993 interview that once Geraldo had been asked by the people to provide rain. So much rain ensued that “the townspeople begged him that they were having floods and that the rain was enough. He then stopped the rain; at this point Geraldo [who had been imprisoned] was released from prison.”60 Finally, Geraldo solidified his connection with the Anlos through marriage. One of his wives was said to be woman from Atorkor called Nyamewu. Given Atorkor’s involvement in slave traffic, this marriage may also have helped him in his business dealings.61
But his granddaughter and other informants also speak of his European connections. “He traveled to Vodza and built a story building; downstairs was divided in two. One half had the women and the second half had the men. They did not mix and they did not dress up.” Here her description of the European-style building (the remnants of which are still there today) shows de Lima’s adoption of European ways. Furthermore, she says, “He dressed up like a European” and he was a Catholic.62
Geraldo may have adopted a Europeanized personal style, but his relationship with the British authorities was combative at best. First, Geraldo attempted to thwart British attempts to enforce the abolition laws. Second, even when he diversified his trading interests, he still refused to comply with the law that required traders to pay custom dues to the government.63 This law came into effect when in 1874 the British formally extended their colonial rule to the Anlo territory. Furthermore, Geraldo, in seeking to further thwart British influence, made overtures to the Germans, who by 1884 had declared a protectorate in neighboring Togo. The British were highly suspicious of Geraldo’s dealings and, in fact, accused him of plotting to kill Captain Campbell, the British district consul. As a result of such tensions, they demolished his two-story house at Vodza and set out to arrest him. His arrest in Vodza in January 1885 effectively ended his career as a major trader in the area since he was detained (without much of a trial) till 1893. He was imprisoned in part because of his ability to wield a certain power over political and economic activities on the coast. The British, fearing such power, decided to imprison him, thus allowing themselves more room to solidify their base in the area.64
I contend here that even though British rule at this time might have been somewhat tenuous—enough so that they perceived Geraldo as a threat—they had sufficient control of the area to arrest Geraldo and to keep him detained for a period of eight years. This is to say that even given de Lima’s acknowledged power in the area, he was still subject to the constraints of British rule, first in terms of the direction of his trade (from slaves to oil, etc.) and second in terms of the final curtailment of his activities through imprisonment. If one of the most powerful traders of the time was placed in such a position, what does that say of others who were less powerful? It is true that he maintained a power base from the 1850s to 1885, but as we have seen, this required a careful juggling between local Anlo chiefs and the British authorities. Given this fact he was not able to control slave supply, but he did expertly negotiate a complicated set of variables to his own benefit. In the end, the British asserted their ultimate control over the area by not only extending their rule but imprisoning Geraldo, who perhaps more than anyone could have seriously challenged their goals. This example shows the complex reality of trading ventures along the Upper Slave Coast in the nineteenth century. Even their most powerful trader was subject to internal and external constraints that eventually ended his tenure as a major player.
If the constraints placed on individual traders were symptomatic of this period of transformation from a more organized trade to a disorganized one, then so were incidents of kidnapping. Unfortunately, there is not much literature on the subject. The ship surgeon Falconbridge asserted that kidnapping seemed to play a major role in the slave trade. “All the information I could procure confirmed me in the belief that to kidnapping and other crimes the slave trade owes its chief support.”65 Furthermore, there exists very little statistical information regarding how slaves were acquired. Among the little that exists is the information collected by the linguist Koelle in the 1850s—the time period of this study. Koelle looked at records of slaves that were captured then released and brought to Sierra Leone in the 1850s. Subsequent analysis of this data shows that 30 percent of the slaves had been kidnapped, 34 percent had been taken in war, 11 percent had become slaves as a result of the judicial process, 7 percent were debtors, and 7 percent were sold by “relatives and superiors.”66 We do not know, of course, the extent to which his tally of one-third of the slave supply acquired by kidnapping was typical. We also do not have conclusive evidence as to who would have been responsible for the kidnapping—Europeans or Africans.
Still, there is no question that kidnapping was one method used by Europeans in procuring slaves, particularly in the beginning of the era; but in the main, these random acts soon gave way to more organized trade. That the Atorkor incident happened as late as 1856 suggests that Europeans did engage in some random acts of kidnapping in the postabolition period. Though the claim of one oral source, Mama Dzagba, that “they [Africans] were stolen by the white people . . . the Europeans did not buy the slaves,” can easily be challenged by the data, it is clear that such incidents did not take place only in the early years of the trade.67
In terms of African agency, two names surfaced the most frequently in the oral accounts with respect to kidnapping incidents. These were Kpego (Pogo) and Kajani. Both were professional slave catchers. There are several important references to these men that shed some light on their activities and their effects on Anlo society. Kpego was said to be “the leader” in slave dealings. He was from Asamara, an Anlo town near Tsiame. “He caught anybody, any stranger, any citizen, and sold Anlos to the Danes.”68 In another account it is said that “he went by the roadside to collect whomever, give them drink, keep them for some time, sold them at the coast . . . his station at Atorkor, Adina, or Keta.”69 Kajani was supposedly not an Anlo but from the northern region. “He would arrest people and chain them together. Anlos went and bought slaves and sold them to the Danes.”70 There are few sources of information on these individuals. From the scant knowledge we have about them, we may assume that they acted as individual traders who did not engage in any large-scale partnerships. What is particularly significant here is the fact that the activities of these men and others created a certain insecurity among the Anlos given the knowledge that people could be randomly captured and sold away from their communities against their will.
These two names are as well known as two others associated with slave catching elsewhere in Ghana in the nineteenth century—Babatu and Samori. Both did much of their slave raiding in the northern region of Ghana.71 They had large armed groups at their disposal and essentially terrorized the people and waged numerous battles in order to obtain slaves. Babatu, in particular, was much feared by villages in the region, who were required to pay heavy tributes in order to avoid capture. The groups whose villages he and others raided included the Sisselas, the Dagartis, the Konkombas, the Frafras, the Kassenas, the Grunshi, and the Namdams, among others.72 He was eventually cornered and forced to flee to the northern town of Yendi, where his grave may still be found. In fact, there is a folk festival that commemorates even today the capture of Babatu and thus the end of his evil exploits.73 What is interesting here is that Babatu, like his counterpart Geraldo de Lima in southeastern Ghana, acted as an individual trader, notwithstanding the fact that both worked with others to accomplish their aims. Babatu, in fact, was from Niger and Geraldo de Lima from Agoue (present-day Benin)—both places outside of Ghana. They did not represent any particular ethnic group, and their allegiances varied according to their purpose. The role of these rogue traders as well as the fluidity of regional boundaries demonstrate the complexity of the issue of slave supply, which could not always be attributed to particular ethnic groups or even chiefs.
If slave supply was to be controlled by any one group in southeastern Ghana, it would have to have been a large state like the Asante. In fact, if one looks at any map of the slave markets and routes, Kumasi—the center of Asante control—is central to all these routes. All roads seem to lead to Kumasi. A small group like the Ewes of loosely organized local chiefdoms could not exert total control over slave supply in the nineteenth century. As seen above, they had much more sway over the direction of the trade in the period when there were more organized systems in place. It is possible that only a large centralized state with a standing military operation could have dominated the trade during the turbulent period that followed the abolition of the trade.
Certainly there is evidence that the Asante and their allies, the Akwamus, played an important role in slave trading throughout the era of the slave trade. As one oral source confirmed: “The Asante were the main traders and the name Atorkor is derived from the Akan, meaning ‘let me buy and go.’”74 Before this time, the town was called by the Ewe name Akplorkplorti, which refers to a particular tree that grows in the area.75 The Asante in the eighteenth century, in effect, renamed the town in their own language in much the same way as was done by Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors of old with America, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and so on. Still, even at the height of their activities in the eighteenth century, for them to have been in control of slave supply suggests that slave trading was their primary activity. There is to date much debate regarding this issue. Several authors, after careful analysis, confirm the importance of the Asante and the Akwamus as slave traders but see this activity as part of a larger economic and political agenda.
In other words, the Asante and the Akwamus, continuing into the nineteenth century, were also known traders of cotton, salt, oil, pottery, and particularly gold.76 In terms of their political aspirations, there is evidence that they pursued an expansionist policy, with slaves and other end products simply the result of their consistent warfare as opposed to the reason for it.77 Throughout the years from the slave-trade era till now, they have been sometimes accused of going to war to acquire and then to sell slaves. However, Asante leaders like Osei Bonsu, Asantehene in 1820 contended: “I cannot make war to catch slaves in the bush like a thief. My ancestors never did so. But if I fight like a king and kill him when he is insolent, then certainly I must have his gold, and his slaves and the people are mine too. Do not the white kings act like this?”78
This assertion was backed by other observers such as the English official Cruikshank, who in 1853 said, “The Ashantee wars are never undertaken expressly to supply this demand [for slaves]”79 Kwame Arhin in his work shows that slaves who were captured in war would be sold as slaves. He further claims that Asante chiefs tried in many ways to limit the influence of traders. This they did out of their belief that trading would destroy an appetite for war. There was even a concern that professional traders would sell arms to the enemies of the Asante, thus threatening the welfare of the state.80 The Kumasi chiefs confirmed as much in Bowdich’s nineteenth-century account: “Were [the chiefs] to encourage commerce, pomp (to which they are much inclined) would soon cease to be their prerogative because it would be attainable by others; the traders growing wealthy, would vie with them: and for their own security, stimulated by reflections they now have too little at risk to originate, they would unite to repress the arbitrary power of the Aristocracy; and even if they did not, inevitably (as the chiefs conceive) divert the people’s genius for war.”81
That said, there was still a connection between periods of high incidence of warfare and voluminous slave traffic. The king of Salaga in northern Ghana asserted in 1876: “The Ashanti often sold into slavery a whole village full of his people and . . . no one’s life or property was safe when the Ashantees were in the country.”82 The Salaga slave market was indeed the most famous of all the slave markets. Salaga, founded by the Mande leader Dyakpa Nde wura in the Gonja kingdom in the sixteenth century, was overrun by Asante forces in 1744 who subsequently conquered much of the surrounding areas and made them tributary states of the Asante kingdom.
As a result, the Asante maintained control over the Salaga market, Dagbon, and other regions in the north and in this way were able to administer their trading operations. Salaga and the northern slave routes in general (which includes three of Ghana’s ten administrative regions—the northern, upper eastern, and the upper western regions) were important outposts not only for the movement of slaves to the south (who would then be transported across the Atlantic) but also for the movement of slaves along the Trans-Saharan routes—the western route, a central route, and two easterly routes spanning across West Africa, the Sahara, and North Africa. Even today in these areas there are many physical reminders of this past, including a pond in Salaga called wonkan bawa (Hausa for “the bathing place of slaves”) and the old slave camp of Paga in the upper east region where holes dug in rocks (which served as drinking troughs), graves, and auction blocks can still be seen today.83
Bono Manso slave market, commemorative plaque.
Photo: Anne C. Bailey.
The Bono Manso slave market was also one of the major markets for the Asante, and remnants of this history can be found there today. In fact, the inhabitants still tell and reenact a story from this period that records a bit of this history. Briefly, Bono Manso, which according to local tradition was once a major town called Techiman with 277 streets, during the slave trade became a way station for slaves from the north who were being transported to Kumasi and further south. There they would be sold either internally or across the Atlantic. According to oral sources, “Here the sick and tired were left with the chief [of Bono Manso] to take care of them. They also captured people from Bono Manso to replace the sick and tired.” 84
In general, when there were periods of relative peace and retrenchment in this area, such as early in the nineteenth century, there was a decline in the trade.85 There is no denying, then, the great and pervasive Asante influence in slave trading. This influence was felt indirectly as well. Europeans on the coast recorded the growth of organizations of slave catchers that they called “Siccadingers”—from Fika din in the Ga language, which means “black gold.” In this climate of state warfare and raiding as well as the overwhelming European demand for slaves, these individuals got in the business for themselves and illegally enslaved many free men on the coast and sold them to European traders. Ironically, some of these slaves were laborers on Akwamu farms.86 This paints a somewhat bleak picture of how destabilizing and insecure life must have been for many communities within and without these centralized and expansionist states. In plain terms, if those who belonged to these large states were not safe, then who was?
In terms of the specific relationship between the Asante, the Akwamus, and the Anlo Ewe, they were often allies. In 1730, when Anlo was no longer tributary to the Akan state Akwamu, they continued a relationship based on trade. Later, with the rise of the Asante empire, this relationship greatly involved the trading of prisoners of war. By the turn of the nineteenth century, evidence of their relations could be detected in the existence of Ewe envoys that were sent via Akwamu to the Asante stronghold of Kumasi.87 After the abolition of the slave trade, the Asante and the Akwamus depended on the Anlos in their prime location on the coast for the continuity of trade in the face of British restrictions. They also depended on the Anlos for military support.88 This role caused the Anlos to be caught between Asante conflicts with the British—conflicts that were heating up in the 1850s and 1860s. Colonial records of this period show that the British were constantly concerned that there would be an Asante invasion. In fact, the offering of gifts to the king was one way of neutralizing tensions. A decision to send representatives of the Asante king to Cape Coast to sit in on court appearances of Asante citizens was another measure used to ensure peace and to increase trade.89
By 1866 the British took steps to curb this relationship, having acknowledged: “There are but two modes through which the Ashantees . . . can receive supplies from the coast during war, the Assinee and the Volta [Anlos].” In that year, the British troops entered into a conflict between the Anlos and the Adas, This conflict was spearheaded by the trader Geraldo de Lima. As a result of a trading dispute with an Ada man, Geraldo rallied the Anlos to support him in battle. According to reports, “they had provided him with an army of 3000 and 4000 men which he led against the Addas.”90 The British, in turn, rallied their own troops, including support from Accra, Christianborg, and surrounding villages. The end result was that British troops successfully routed the Anlos.91
Still, even after peace agreements were drawn up, the Asante continued to have influence in Anlo Ewe territory.92 This influence did not mean, however, that the Asante controlled trade routes in the area. In the end, it was not until the British asserted more control over the Gold Coast area by the burning of Kumasi in 1874 that this influence substantially decreased.93
Finally, as we will see in chapter 5 on European agency, all these conflicts and wars waged by the Asante and the Akwamu states, among others, cannot be seen in isolation. European agents on the coast, often from their bases in coastal forts and castles, introduced guns and gunpowder at an alarming rate, which greatly increased the incidence of warfare in the area that is now modern-day Ghana and the rest of the West African region.94
Such is the general outline of Anlo Ewe slave-trading activity in the larger context of slave-trading processes in Ghana during the era of the slave trade. In the midst of this discussion of African agency, two important issues regarding such involvement are worth further interrogation. These two issues point to the difficulty that many have in understanding this involvement under any circumstances. First, there is the issue of one ethnic group selling other members of the same ethnic group into slavery. Some say they may have understood how communities with different languages and cultural heritages that were isolated from one another could sell others into slavery, but how do we explain the phenomenon as in this case of Ewes selling other Ewes into slavery?
Second, another important yet irksome question, connected to the first, is: Why did some of those slaves who were transported to the Americas who later had an opportunity to come back to Africa turn around and become slave traders themselves? How do we explain this phenomenon?
As already mentioned elsewhere and evidenced in the quote from Togbui Adeladza at the beginning of this chapter, in terms of cultural motivations unique to the African experience, domestic slavery functioned much as prisons do in contemporary society. It was a means to rid a community of someone undesirable. It was a way to exercise the right to punish that individual while keeping him in the community. It was also a means of social ostracism that was thought to protect the community from criminals who would commit adultery, stealing, and so forth. Furthermore, domestic slavery was a means to incorporate and strengthen a labor system for great and large empires like the Asante, whose tributary states to the north and elsewhere were often forced to work on their plantations. As Bowdich notably remarked in his Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee in 1819: “The extent and order of the Ashantee plantations surprised us yet I do not think they were adequate to the population; in a military government they were not likely to be so. Their neatness and method have been already noticed in our route up. They use no implements but the hoe . . . and a hut at each wicker gate where a slave and his family resided to protect the plantation.”95
But domestic slavery also served the needs of small traders and farmers such as those on the Anlo Ewe coast of southeastern Ghana. Slaves, as we see in oral testimony on the trader Afedima, were used for farming and fishing ventures. In this way, African societies thus did not differ from societies from time immemorial that have used slaves in a similar way. They were also used to build and extend family structures, as when a master would marry his female slave. Finally, slaves were sold for the same reasons that Europeans bought and sold them—money and goods. Human greed and desire for wealth were clearly motivations—universal motivations, if you will—in Ghana and elsewhere in West and Central Africa that encouraged cooperation with European traders of like mind.
Notwithstanding all these factors, I contend here that class issues were at the heart of the level and depth of slave trading that became systematized in the eighteenth century in the Ewe example and at other periods in other regions. What is clear from the record is that everyone in these societies did not enjoy equal status. There a was a dichotomy not only between chiefs and others but also, as mentioned earlier, between kin and others. The African concept of community was extremely small. A complex system of kin networks determined in large part the way in which individuals interacted with others. Among the Anlo Ewe, kinship networks on the Atlantic coast were preeminent in their understanding of community. Even other Ewes to the north were largely excluded from these networks except in cases of intermarriage.
This situation was not unlike prerevolutionary Europe and America, where the ideals of “all men are created equal” and “liberté, fraternité, and egalité” were unequivocally groundbreaking at the time of their introduction. These ideals were explicitly set forth in the American Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789—notwithstanding the irony that slavery and colonialism played a dominant role in both European and American societies at the time. The supreme irony is that it was the very question of slavery that engendered the debate around these issues of freedom and equality. Before this period, in much of Europe serfdom was predominant till the fourteenth century. Serfs, though not slaves, had limited rights. They were largely tied to the land of their masters, who could arbitrarily discipline and dispose of them. And so, though chattel slavery in Europe, as such was rare, serfs with few privileges were doomed to a fixed class system. It was not till the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that this system gave way to rents, free contracts, and monetary payments and serfdom thus became a thing of the past.96
The inequalities that existed in prerevolutionary Europe that sustained a feudal economy were not unlike the inequalities present in some African societies. Historian Walter Rodney in his seminal book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, argues that before the advent of the European on the continent, communalism—understood as equal and cooperative relationships within African communities—was the rule and not the exception. Though in general I agree with many of Rodney’s arguments, particularly his conclusions regarding the devastating effects of the trade on the continent, I do not fully concur that communalism was as dominant as he claims. There may have been a veneer of communalism in some African societies, but this did not take away from the underlying presence of different social relationships. These social relationships during the slave-trade era became socioeconomic relationships. The reason the Atorkor incident is still remembered and told in a sea of relative forgetfulness on this subject in the Anlo Ewe region is because the chiefs and the headmen had now become victims. Given their social status, the unthinkable had taken place. This is what makes this incident in the mid-nineteenth century an important turning point—the realization that no one was immune from the trade and that in the eyes of the slave trader everyone was a potential slave, everyone was judged equally in spite of social status. Issues of class, then, are one explanation and an answer to the question of why Africans sold other Africans into slavery.
We know, as mentioned before, that certain ex-slaves, particularly some Brazilian slaves in the nineteenth century, returned to Africa and engaged in slave traffic. At the same time, in terms of balance, it should be said that not all the ex-Brazilian slaves who returned to Africa got involved in the slave trade. For example, a very interesting group in Ghana, called the Tabon, had a great desire to return to Africa and thus made the journey to Ghana in 1829. Tabon comes from the Portuguese Ta bom? (Is it okay?). They were originally seven families under the leadership of one Azumah Nelson, and they were all former slaves who had bought their freedom. Skilled craftsmen and farmers in Brazil, they brought these skills with them when they arrived in Jamestown, Accra. They were well received by the local chiefs and eventually were absorbed into the Otublohum Section of the Ga State. Today, they are considered a part of the Ga ethnic group, native to Accra, but maintain their own distinct identity and have their own chief, called the Tabon Mantse. The structure and people of Brazil House on Brazil Lane, their original residence in Jamestown, still stands as a testimony to the contributions that these ex-slaves made to their new home communities. Other Brazilian ex-slaves also migrated to other areas in Africa, including Lagos, and formed similar communities, in which they built schools, churches, and other public buildings.97
Why did others take a different turn? On one level, it adds to the comment made by Chief Akolatse to the Crowther Commission in the early twentieth century: “There was no work, we had to sell slaves.”98 It may say something about the predominance of slave tracking, hunting, and selling activities on the African continent in the nineteenth century that even some of those who returned were drawn into the trade. What had been a marginal activity in the sixteenth century became a predominant one in the nineteenth in no small part due to the overwhelming influence of European and American traders and their African counterparts. This type of climate could encourage such activity even on a small scale. Still, this is an area that, though troubling, is worthy of further research to truly understand the motivations and the circumstances of those traders who were themselves ex-slaves.
This last point demonstrates, as was said in the beginning, the true complexity of this era and the absolute necessity of not painting a picture in starkly black-and-white, “good guy”/ “bad guy” terms. The attacks, the counterattacks, the raids, the subterfuge, the kidnapping, and the rest add up to one very disturbing and confused time in history. Relationships and identities were constantly shifting in response to changing circumstances. On the one hand, there were universal motivations for involvement in the slave trade—simple human greed and desire for wealth. Other motivations were more culturally nuanced and particular to groups and individuals who participated in the trade. Still other reasons may never fully be known or understood. One thing that is clear, however, is that there were always those Africans who chose not to participate and who resisted the trade. As such, no discussion of African agency is complete without a look at the other side of that agency: resistance to slave traffic on the continent. This we will look at in the following chapter in the context of resistance to slavery in the African Diaspora.
