Jul 19, 2020
Heroes and Villains of the Atlantic slave trade: Nwaubani Ogogo, c. 1900
I wrote my article on Slavery in Africa about five weeks ago, basing much of my horror on learning about Africans enslaving other Africans to sell to Europeans on some anecdotes I’d heard when visiting family back in Nigeria a few years ago.
Here’s a much more keenly researched version published on the BBC, and written by the great-grand daughter of a Nigerian slave trader. A brief excerpt:
“Nwaubani Ogogo’s slaves were sold through the ports of Calabar and Bonny in the south of what is today known as Nigeria.
People from ethnic groups along the coast, such as the Efik and Ijaw, usually acted as stevedores for the white merchants and as middlemen for Igbo traders like my great-grandfather.”
I share this to say that we *all* have blood on our hands when it comes to slavery. Every race. Black, and white.
This is why the pulling down of statues by angry mobs has never sat well with me. That is not how to make amends. It only stokes resentment and hatred and fuels division.
As someone eloquently said, statues are symbols of power and influence that reflect the times they were erected in.
And, I want to add, the personalities they represent have been dead hundreds of years.
Instead, we need to have discussions about how to help the people alive now, in the present, and work for justice and equal opportunities for the living, regardless of race or creed.
A trailblazing example of this kind of noble behaviour is the action of Marcus Rashford, a black football player in 21st century England calling on politicians to provide free school meals over the summer to over a million children living in poverty in the UK, as the economic crisis in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic begins to bite.
The irony that most of the recipients of his gallantry are of different race to him is certainly not lost on me and his selfless behaviour speaks louder than a million YouTube likes for the statue of a dead white man falling to the ground, in my book.
This is the action of someone who is effecting change and making sure it applies to every human involved. If there was a definition of non-racism, if that is a word(!), this is it.
The subject of this final article in my series is fittingly Nwabuani Ogogo, the subject of that incredibly well-researched article on the BBC.
I had hoped to write more on the history of prominent individuals in the British colonial empire during the period of the Atlantic slave trade when I started this little series last month.
The idea was to profile an individual by presenting an abridged version of their Wikipedia entry. I had been educating myself on long-forgotten British colonial history, and attempting to learn more about the prominent founding fathers of Nigeria whose names I vaguely remember from primary school history lessons (in Nigeria).
Sadly, beyond Samuel Ajayi Crowther’s entry (the basis of the first article) and the incredibly interesting entry for ‘Black Victorian’ Sara Forbes Bonetta, who “was liberated from enslavement and became a goddaughter to Queen Victoria”, there just wasn’t enough material on Wikipedia to continue.
That in itself is a lesson.
My dad has always said that Africans should document their own history because this is something they have not done very well, historically.
So true.
Ironically, with Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s article on a rather shameful aspect of its past, we are starting to do so. I’m going to look into adding a page on Wikipedia about her great-grandad.
I hope we all learn from this, whatever side of the Black Lives Matter debate we are on.
Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed learning the British colonial history powering much of the times of slavery — and profiled the fascinating story of musician, lawyer and abolitionist Granville Sharp in the second article in the series to share this.
We must remember there is a reason it was called the slave trade. Granville’s Wikipedia entry poignantly reminds us that the economy of Great Britain had become reliant on the slave trade even as its government was trying to shut it down.
Now is the time to learn from history, and to demonstrate that we really desire to offer every human being an equal opportunity to become the best they can be, regardless of the colour of their skin.
Because, despite the horrors unleashed by the Atlantic slave trade, we have actually come some way to ensuring universal abhorrence for that ghastly period of our collective past.
Now to work hard for a fairer future. Now to champion real, lasting change.
