Thread by @MrOdanz

Black people often talk about the slave trade as if white people stormed Africa, held Africans at gunpoint and kidnapped Africans away.

They don't tell you that the slave trade was largely a TRADE. And that it was thriving in Africa years before Europeans joined the fray.

Years before the transatlantic slave trade, Africans were selling themselves to Arabs in exchange for salt, gold and other items.

It was a business transaction. You bring a sack of salt or its equivalent and African slave traders hand you a breathing, agile human being

Africans, as a matter of fact, made more efforts in the value chains of the slave trade.

They fought the wars, they captured their fellow Africans as slaves, they transported these slaves (Africans) through forests, deserts to the coastlines where the Europeans bought them.

Of course there were instances where Europeans did actually kidnap Africans. But that was an exception.

The norm of the slave trade was that slave ships anchored in the coasts and Africans led their brothers like sheep to the coastlines in exchange for mirrors,guns, biscuits(🙃)

There are families today whose history is rooted in slave merchandise. Most royal families (Monarchs) were slave merchants.

The kings of the old Dahomey kingdom were dealers in slaves. Same as the Kings of ancient Oyo and much of the Riverine Kingdoms to the South.

Francisco Félix de Souza was a famous slave merchant in Dahomey Kingdom.

His descendants remain powerful in today's Benin Republic. They hold title, they're landowners and are STILL well-respected.

Same with many families in Nigeria and much of Africa. Renowned slave merchants

And it is not like these African slave merchants treated their slaves any humanly. They also tortured and maimed.

They led them through forests for days until they handed them over to Europeans in the coastal Cities.

This isn't absolving Europeans of the atrocities they committed during slavery.

The dehumanization Africans faced in slave ships and in plantations are incomparable.

But sometimes Africans also need to own up to the part they played. Africans weren't JUST victims.

So when people talk about reparations, it gets me a bit curious:

Do we also hold the families of Africa slave merchants (and owners) accountable?

Do they also get to pay some sort of reparation for their roles?

Or must turn a blind eye to the part they played? 🤔

And this draws my mind to the Chinese "recolonization" of Africa and how they treat Africans.

Do Africans treat themselves humanely enough? Do our leaders/Government place any value/Premium on us?

Or we get mad only when Chinese folks treat us the way we treat ourselves? 🤔

Africa will continue being as shitty as it was during the slave trade if we continue shifting responsibility to others.

Strangers will treat us the way we treat ourselves. If we treat ourselves like animals with no value, don't expect anything different from others.Kpa du Kpa du