"AFRICAN NAIVETY BEGAN IN ANCIENT TIMES"
-Prof. John Henrik Clark
'Never make a stranger suffer and whatever else you may do to a stranger, do not kill him... For he knows not the laws by which you live' -Oba Ewuare of the Benin Empire, 1470 CE.
#Africa
There was always the error among Africans that other peoples around the world share the same values with them. According to Historian, Prof. John Henrik Clark, "the African would feed a stranger before he thinks of the children's meal..." It was cultural.
"For if you are humane and another human being comes into your house, you invite him to dinner..." You offer him a meal and rest. This was the cultural predisposition that the Portuguese met in African when they arrived in 1485.
No one would have known that "the welcomed guest would enslave the man of the house and the woman who cooked the meal".
In 1470, Oba(a royal title, meaning 'king' in the Edo language of present-day Nigeria), Ewuare the great, of the Benin empire that was centered around Bini city, envisioned a day in the future when strangers from across 'the salt waters' would set the empire up in flames.
His later successor, Oba Ozoluo(1481-1504CE) knew of the prophecy, but when the Portuguese arrived in 1485 CE, he received them as the welcomed guests of the emperor. He even gave the Portuguese permission to build forts on an island that became known as Fernando Po.
It was from here that the Portuguese, first began exploiting the Congo, the bight of Biafra and what is today Equatorial Guinea. Elmina castle, in what is today Central region of Ghana(where over 12 million Africans who walked through the 'gate of no return' ended up as enslaved
persons in the Americas) was to come shortly after.
When the Akan groups, revolted against the presence of the unfriendly strangers on their coast, the Portuguese left briefly to return later on, as messengers from a God who created all things.
What followed could better be explained with the words of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first President: "when the Europeans came to our lands, we had the land and they had the bible; 'close your eyes, let's pray'. And we closed our eyes shut.
When we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the bible".
There was also an ancient Masai prophecy that said "when the white one comes, the African shall die".
This prophecy was also known by the Garamantes who made up the number of Africans that took over Iberian peninsula in 711 CE. But none was considered by these Africans.
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