African roots: slavery was widespread on the African continent long before Europeans appeared - and, indeed, is still practiced there

National Review, March 10, 1997 by Kevin Beary

BLACK History Month draws to a close, but the voices demanding reparations for slavery grow ever louder. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) suggests that black Americans "petition the United States for immediate, emergency reparations payments." The United Kingdom-based Africa Reparations Movement (ARM) explains that reparations "are intended to compensate in some way for over 400 years of enslavement and colonisation." Indeed, there is now a bill (HR 891) introduced by Rep. John Conyers entitled, "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act." The appropriation sought for the mere establishment of the commission is $8 million.

But before the West in general, and America in particular, rushes to pay reparations to every individual in the world with a drop of African blood, it might be worthwhile to take a look at the historical record, to determine where responsibility for the African slave-trade should most properly be laid.

Does the following scenario sound familiar? In the 1700s, a handsome young African, scion of a noble family, goes off for a stroll through the Eden that is the African jungle. Suddenly he is surrounded by a party of white slave-catchers. Though he resists with all his might, he is taken captive and transported to the American south, where he lives out his days in slavery.

This scene, from the mini-series based on Alex Haley's famous historical novel Roots, is familiar to millions of Americans, black and white. It is a confirmation of white guilt and black victimization made vivid on the television screen. It is a story reiterated from the pulpits of black activism in America: "We were kings and queens in our own country, and white folk stole us from our native land and made us slaves in America."

But history, as Thomas Sowell tells us, is what happened, not what we wish had happened. And how to know what really happened except by studying the records kept by the men who were actually involved in the slave trade hundreds of years ago?

First-hand accounts of the slave-trade are not numerous, but some form part of the Schomberg Collection of the New York Public Library, in Harlem, at Lennox (or Malcolm X) Boulevard and 135th Street. One of the oldest is A new Account of Some Part of Guinea, and the Slave Trade, published in London in 1734, which contains "The manner how the Negroes become Slaves." This is what the author, Captain William Snelgrave, has to say on the subject:

As for the manner how those people become slaves, it may be reduced under these several Heads.

1. It has been the custom among the Negroes, time out of mind, and is so to this day, for them to make slaves of all the captives they take in war. Now, before they had an opportunity of selling them to the white people, they were often obliged to kill great multitudes, when they had taken more than they could well employ in their own plantation.

Secondly. Most crimes amongst them are punished by mulcts and fines; and if the offender has not wherewithal to pay his fine, he is sold for a slave.

Thirdly. Debtors who refuse to pay their debts, or are insolvent, are likewise liable to be made slaves.

Fourthly. I have been told, that it is common for some inland people, to sell their children for slaves. But I never observed, that the people near the sea coast practice this, unless compelled thereto by extreme want and famine, as the people of Whidaw have lately been.

Another first-hand account of the slave-trade is John Newton's The Journal of a Slave Trader, written during the years 1750 to 1754, and published, together with the author's "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade" in London in 1788. Late in life Newton repented of his slave trading, and became a clergyman and an abolitionist.

In his "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade," written after he had seen the light, Newton writes:

The [African] law . . . punishes some species of theft with slavery; and in cases of adultery, both the woman, and the man who offends with her are liable to be sold for slaves. . . . I believe many of the slaves purchased in Sherbo, and probably upon the whole Windward coast, are convicts, who have forfeited their liberty, by breaking the laws of their country. . . .

I judge, the principal source of the slave trade, is, the wars which prevail among the natives.

As concerns slave catching a la Roots, Newton writes:

Some people suppose, that the ship trade is rather the stealing, than the buying of slaves. But there is enough to lay to the charge of the ships, without accusing them falsely. The slaves, in general, are bought, and paid for. . . . With regard to the natives, to steal a free man or woman, and to sell them on board a ship, would, I think, be a more difficult and more dangerous attempt in Sherbro, than in London.

It is well to remember that Newton wrote the forgoing account after he had not only renounced the slave trade but also become an abolitionist clergyman. But rather than denounce slave raiding as depicted by Alex Haley, Newton specifically points out that the slave trade was not "rather the stealing, than the buying of slaves," and takes pains to caution his readers that "there is enough to lay to the charge of the [slave] ships, without accusing them falsely [of stealing slaves]."