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>>>>> 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? >> >>If you're looking at the people in central Africa who >>bewcame the slaves, you're mainly looking at >>small(ish) tribes and not 'states', so the question is >>one that can't be answered. >> >>It's similar to asking "Which European Great Powers in >>1914 were not Empires or did not have colonies?" > > >My point is that the West African Kingdoms controlled >the supply of slave to the ships and without them the >trade could not have developed as it did. I don't >think there are any records of which tribes were >particularly preyed upon at that time. > >To simply say that the only people who were involved >were either White British slavers or Black African >victims is wrong. My argument is that one of the >main reasons why the west now abhors slavery is the >change in attitude that Great Britain spearheaded, and >her policy of effecting the ban. > >The Black African Kingdoms on the west coast opposed >the policy, and when the interior was opened up the >Bornu Confederacy opposed the anti slavery policy on >the grounds that it always had been that way. Tippu >Tib set up a central African state in the 1870s based >on slaves and ivory. > >If you say that the only Black Africans whose >involvement matters were those who were enslaved then >I think that you are being selective about African >involvement. > >Which ever way you look at it the impetus to change >things came from this country, the cost in blood and >gold of suppressing the slave trade was born by this >country and now 200 years later in a supposed >celebration of the suppression of the slave trade >Great Britain is in fact being pilloried. > >And it still leaves the question that there were many >organised and comparatively sophisticated independent >black African states who could have supported us, if >only by ceasing to trade in them with the Americans, >Spanish, Portuguese, "Arabs" to name a few after the >second Act in the 1830s. The Royal Navy had to >maintain anti-slaving patrols right up the end of that >century. > >I think the trouble is that this issue is usually only >seen in terms of race and colour. We have also, for >nearly a generation, been told that everything Great >Britain has ever achieved was worthless and this so- >called celebration of the abolition of slavery is >simply another example of it. > >But there still wren any Black African powers who were >prepared to support us.
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