“There were claims on behalf of descendants of slaves, those Africans who had died on the sea journey, by the Caribbean nations where slaves had been made to work against their will, and the African regions which had lost so many people.”
I find the inclusion of the last group in this list puzzling, since these regions necessarily include the descendants of a lot of people who were themselves involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
Thanks for the comment. I think it's feasible to argue that those African regions suffered economically from the loss of so much labour. Presumably the alternative would have been for them to remain slaves in Africa, or to be killed, given the nature of tribal warfare. Oludah Equiano documented how he and his sister were brought downriver by their African captors before being sold to white men.
The argument that Africans were the helpless victims of white slavers is itself a white supremacy argument, I would suggest. The idea that relatively small numbers of white men in wooden boats were able to subjugate vast areas on the west coast of Africa and extract millions of people without local assistance seems far-fetched to me. On the other hand, if there had not been willing buyers for slaves on that coast, perhaps fewer Africans would have been abducted from their villages.
I remember reading Equiano’s book in university. The teaching assistants also used a movie about his life to babysit us for one recitation session.
Interestingly, if the justification for reparations paid to West African states is indeed compensation for economic loss due to depopulation, then such a practice would be very similar to the reparations paid to former slave owners after abolition. But I suppose that was Grant’s point.
The attitude that looks at Africans and people of African descent as helpless victims is an active topic among counter-culture Black intellectuals here in the U.S. I remember the backlash against the movie Woman King, which portrayed the Kingdom of Dahomey as heroic freedom fighters, despite the Kingdom of Dahomey being martial state built on conquest and slave trading. I once brought up that Dahomey was one of the biggest slave traders in West Africa. I was corrected that it was the biggest slave trader in West Africa of its time.
I wonder if Stephen Spielberg's 1997 movie 'Amistad' is still shown anywhere. Somehow I doubt he'd be allowed to make 'The Color Purple' (1985) today either. Anecdotally, Quincy Jones persuaded him to make that movie by saying 'You didn't have to be an alien to make E.T.'
Thanks, I write to test my ideas and find out if there are viable counter-arguments. The difficult part is getting engagement from the people who disagree. It's either clueless trolling or silence these days.
I think that many people are now simply too lazy to read longer articles unless they are on a clickbait topic. Many others are too rigid in their thinking, too used to simplistic and ideologized narratives, to be open to non-mainstream perspectives. E.g. Bernie Grant tends to be portrayed in an uncritical way by mainstream “progressive” media.
I don't think the progressives of today have seriously engaged with Grant's politics. The local council named an arts centre after him, and the Labour Party had a mentoring programme in his name a few years ago. There's very little recent media about him that I was able to find.
“There were claims on behalf of descendants of slaves, those Africans who had died on the sea journey, by the Caribbean nations where slaves had been made to work against their will, and the African regions which had lost so many people.”
I find the inclusion of the last group in this list puzzling, since these regions necessarily include the descendants of a lot of people who were themselves involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
Thanks for the comment. I think it's feasible to argue that those African regions suffered economically from the loss of so much labour. Presumably the alternative would have been for them to remain slaves in Africa, or to be killed, given the nature of tribal warfare. Oludah Equiano documented how he and his sister were brought downriver by their African captors before being sold to white men.
The argument that Africans were the helpless victims of white slavers is itself a white supremacy argument, I would suggest. The idea that relatively small numbers of white men in wooden boats were able to subjugate vast areas on the west coast of Africa and extract millions of people without local assistance seems far-fetched to me. On the other hand, if there had not been willing buyers for slaves on that coast, perhaps fewer Africans would have been abducted from their villages.
I remember reading Equiano’s book in university. The teaching assistants also used a movie about his life to babysit us for one recitation session.
Interestingly, if the justification for reparations paid to West African states is indeed compensation for economic loss due to depopulation, then such a practice would be very similar to the reparations paid to former slave owners after abolition. But I suppose that was Grant’s point.
The attitude that looks at Africans and people of African descent as helpless victims is an active topic among counter-culture Black intellectuals here in the U.S. I remember the backlash against the movie Woman King, which portrayed the Kingdom of Dahomey as heroic freedom fighters, despite the Kingdom of Dahomey being martial state built on conquest and slave trading. I once brought up that Dahomey was one of the biggest slave traders in West Africa. I was corrected that it was the biggest slave trader in West Africa of its time.
I wonder if Stephen Spielberg's 1997 movie 'Amistad' is still shown anywhere. Somehow I doubt he'd be allowed to make 'The Color Purple' (1985) today either. Anecdotally, Quincy Jones persuaded him to make that movie by saying 'You didn't have to be an alien to make E.T.'
Fascinating article!
Thanks, I write to test my ideas and find out if there are viable counter-arguments. The difficult part is getting engagement from the people who disagree. It's either clueless trolling or silence these days.
I think that many people are now simply too lazy to read longer articles unless they are on a clickbait topic. Many others are too rigid in their thinking, too used to simplistic and ideologized narratives, to be open to non-mainstream perspectives. E.g. Bernie Grant tends to be portrayed in an uncritical way by mainstream “progressive” media.
I don't think the progressives of today have seriously engaged with Grant's politics. The local council named an arts centre after him, and the Labour Party had a mentoring programme in his name a few years ago. There's very little recent media about him that I was able to find.
I agree with you - there is no serious engagement.