Date Posted:10:29:28 03/24/07 Sat Author: Grumpyoldman Author Host/IP: 81-178-252-44.dsl.pipex.com / 81.178.252.44 Subject: Re: Drake started the slave trade In reply to:
Martin
's message, "Re: Drake started the slave trade" on 06:50:40 03/24/07 Sat
>> I would
>>challenge Martin to tell me the name of a single
>>African Power that supported Great Britain in her
>>Policy of Abolition and ENFORCEING it so effectively.
>>I am prepared to accept that there may have been one
>>but I am not aware who.
>>
>
>I think that's a rather unfair question - the Africans
>who were enslaved were very much opposed to the trade,
>but obviously they weren't a 'power' or they wouldn't
>have become slaves!
Why is it an unfair question? Certainly the individuals who
were enslaved would not have been too happy about it any more than the Royalist Prisoners taken at the battle of Worcester (1651) would have been too happy about all those below the rank of Captain being sent to the Fever Isles (the West Indies to you and me) as slaves by Oliver Cromwell. The point is that although it may be fashionable for people today to write off the West African Kingdoms as so inferior to Europeans that they could not decide for themselves if they wished to join in the slave trade, they were not. They could and did conduct diplomacy, control trade (especially in slaves)enter into treaties, maintain armies and all the other activities of a state. They could have resisted involvement in the slave trade and had they done so it is improbable that it would have become as large or as lucrative as it did. It would not have been economic to conduct on such a large scale. So the question remains which African state in Sub-Sahran Africa was prepared to support Great Britain in suppressing the Slave Trade?
