How Africans Lost Power ‘In The World’

Note: In this article, I will use few reference sources to back my argument; it will be helpful if readers can look for the resources I referred to. It is also regrettable that my opinion on this piece of work will touch some people’s comfort zone.

Post Office Box 47

Daaman

Juaben Ashanti, Ghana, West Africa

My fellow Ghanaians & Mr President,

I had the opportunity to visit the Elmina Castle, in July, 1997. At the time of my visit I concurrently went through the Castle with eight tourists (three Britons, three Americans - all whites and two Africa-Americans. The tourists were not my visitors. The gentleman who took me and the tourists through the Castle did his job properly. The gentleman explained the experience of the people (of the then Gold Coast now Ghana) in the dungeon in the hands of their European oppressors. During the visit I recognised that so many cruel and brutalities happened to the captured slaves including, rapes, extorted kisses, beatings and killings. I observed that there was blood stained walls, the fact that there was no place for captured slaves to sit down or stand, I smelled the stench and realised the horrors that the slaves went through before they were transported to the new world. After the visit, I challenged the conscience of the tourists by putting this question to them! ‘How do you think your people treated Africans - our people’? In replying to my question, all the tourists simultaneously remarked! ‘Our ancestors were evils for treating their fellow human beings in such a horrible condition’. The tourists were partly honest to use such a connotation to sum up the answer to my question. However, I taught the tourists should have gone a step further to explain what actually happened to African slaves when they were first raided and removed from their communities by their slave masters Europeans. My visit to Elmina Castle was and continues to be an emotionally touching and moving experience.

It was following my visit to Cape Coast, and my attempt to understand Africans present predicaments as compared to the rest of other continents (countries) that make me to realise the time Africans lost power. I am aware that there are so many problems that face Africans around the world that warrant critical thinking; however, that is not my interest at the moment. My attention now; is to concentrate on how African lost power since European invasion about five Centuries ago and our inability to recapture the power we lost. And what we can do to recapture the power.

How Africans Lost Power

Power plays an important role in human development and progress. Power amounts to an ability to control people, resources, events and history. Power may be referred to as one’s ability to influence social structure upon communities, individuals and societies and about the relationships between groups and between institutions within society. Power can be derived from politics, religious beliefs and ideological beliefs. Power can be used to influence people’s rights, choices, wishes and beliefs and amounts to being able to get things done and to make progress in achieving one’s ends. It can also be used to condition and instruct people to behave and act in certain ways in their environment for many centuries. Power can be transferred from one generation to another and also used to construct positive and negative images about different people. Power is positive when it is used to promote development and well-being of human beings in general. When power is used to promote economic justice, equality of opportunity, life chances, social justice and just society, it is valued and welcomed. On the contrary, power can be potentially dangerous when it is used to: oppress, abuse and exploit people, in a country/countries and continent. Another negative aspect of power is when one country/countries use their military, economic, ideological beliefs to occupy another country or some countries. Also minus aspect of power is when few people in a given country or countries use their power to abuse majority of the population. Also power can be used unjustly when countries that have economic power come together to create institutions to directly and indirectly exploit other counties. Here power is used in the form of sanctions, military threats and tricks to maintain domination over such countries. Also power can be used oppressively when powerful countries partner with few elites/leaders from less developing country/countries to exploit their own people. Power can also be used to depopulate other disadvantaged countries through promotion of coup d’état, wars, genocide and unfair trade practices, In societies, institutions, businesses, communities and politics, different people have different levels of power and more authority and influences than others. The powerful people often have power to control, lead, influence and dictate and also accumulate more resources and property and possession of such wealth/resources in turn can be used to generate and acquire more power. People get power through their ability and determination to be inventive, creative, and innovative within their own environment. Here power is acquired through learning and understanding of the environment. Here power can also be lost when people do not understand their own environment and history. The countries that had power acquired great wealth through many means including, creativity, tricks, exploitation, slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. Throughout history the few powerful countries have used their power to conquer and control other powerless countries and their people and their material resources and they continue to dominate, control and maintain their influence on those countries across the globe. For over five centuries, through slavery, Africa as a continent also came under the influence and control by the powerful countries especially, Europe.

Africans lost power the very first day that the Europeans touched down on Africa - our lands. . Africans were taken into slavery during the Roman Empire, but the original Slave Trade began in the 16th Century with the advent of the Christian Europeans Countries. The Europeans probably arrived in our lands in 15th Century, and Africans were forcibly removed. According to writers such as, Rodney (1981) & Williams (1944), the Europeans Christian Countries instigated and commenced the real Slave Trade in 16th Century. The start of the Atlantic slave-trade in West Africa, took the form of directed attacks on the Africans living along the coast by the Europeans. The writers recorded that the first Portuguese arrived in the coast of Mauritania, left the ships and hunted the Moors who lived in that region. When these violent actions by the Europeans are applied as a principle to the then Gold Coast experience, it is reasonable to say that the European sailors hunted the people who lived along Cape Coast and later penetrated into the main lands to capture slaves. One may ask; did people of Africa resist the Europeans?

After being shocked on few occasions, the Africans naturally watched their attackers and defended themselves aggressively and militarily. Although the Europeans had sophisticated machine guns and weapons, the Africans exhibited their sense of responsibility through their traditionally organised military power and prowess and resisted the Europeans. Williams (1944 p. 37) documented that ‘the Ashanti, for example, from Gold Coast were good workers but too rebellious’ and ‘militant.’ The Europeans recognised that raiding was insecure manner of attempting to obtain slaves, so they abandoned this approach and strategized an alternative plan to trade with Africans more peacefully. Thus the European wanted gold and other commodities which they could acquire by trading with Africans peacefully. Subsequently, instead of raiding the Europeans decided to exchange their manufacturing goods in order to encourage local products and to bring African captives into the slave ships. It was in this method that the Europeans captured so many million Africans.

In the long run West Africans were reduced to ‘sell and be sold’. Here the question of fire arms was crucial. For the African rulers to be strong they required fire arms but to obtain fire arms from Europeans the African rulers had to provide slaves. African traditional leaders found themselves selling their people to get guns to catch slaves to buy more guns. This does not entirely exonerate the African rulers who aided the Europeans, but equally, it describes how the African rulers themselves became servants to Europeans. Thus one cannot dispute the fact that there were African traditional rulers who condoned and partnered with the Europeans to enslave other Africans. In his extraordinary intellectual analysis Rodney stated that the current generation could not take straightforward stance to explain that the whites were ‘villains while African were the victims’. As a result, not only were African material resource extensively exploited, but also Africans were taken to North America, South America, and Central America and Caribbean to provide slave labour in gold, mines and on agricultural plantations - growing crops, sugar, cotton and tobacco. This dishonourable trade lasted for more than four hundred years. Prior to the invasion of Africa by the Europeans the traditional leaders employed the customs and traditional values to mediate conflicts in order to promote peace. It is sensible to think that there were relative peaceful co-existence and we-feelings between our people in their communities. The various African traditional localities had well organised traditional rulers who administered political, judicial and religious functions. Conversely, it is also important to state that tribal wars were part of African societies. Europe was also characterised by civil wars, conflict and wars. For Africans to live, exploit and utilise resources within their environment to survive was an ample demonstration that our people were civilised and inventive before the arrival of the Europeans.

Religiously, Africans knew God before the arrival of the Europeans and their introduction of their European God and European Jesus Christ – a trick that made European to enslave Africans mentally for so many centuries. I hope to explore this briefly later in the article. The ways and means that our ancestors worshiped God was distinctive. They employed many means such as using trees, rivers, stones, sky and other animals; as mediators to worship God. The Europeans employed the same approaches in worshiping God and gods until they developed technology to document their beliefs and practices in the Bible. And following that the Europeans used the Bible to justify the use of Africans as slaves. What a con?

One should not ignore the fact that different societies across the world before Christ and post Christ period had typical ways of worshiping God and Africans were no exception. Our ancestors believed in God; and other gods. Africans hospitality to their fellow human beings was exceptional. They were also humble and trusted their guest. Characteristically; Africans appeared to live simple lives, offered a wonderful welcome to their guests (Europeans) and did respect their fellow human beings.

It is unwise for one to conclude that Africans were the only people that were enslaved and taken into slavery. For example, Britain who ruled almost every part of the world including, Ghana and America with her brutalities and oppressive practices were equally enslaved by the Romans during the 100 BC - Century. And in 100 BC one of the Roman leaders, Cicero advised Atticus not to get slaves from Britain because they were stupid and incapable of learning, (Bhui and Bhugra, 200 p. 111-128). Universally: history reveals that slavery was a common practice.

Abuses of African Slaves

When Europeans captured Africans along the coast and from hinterlands,’ they kept Africans in many dungeons - castles (example is the Elmina Castle in Cape Coast) built by the Europeans. The dungeon was/is not like a jail, prisons or cells where the inmates could demand their fundamental rights and choices. In the dungeon most of the Africans were humiliated and murdered and physically abuse. It is easy to think that the abuses began from African communities where they had been forcibly captured and chained until they arrived in the dungeon. Taking the women as a template, the Europeans kept the African women for many weeks and months prior to their arrival on the slave ships. One would imagine that within those weeks and months the abuses took place unabated in the form of sexual, psychological, physical and emotional abuse. The slave masters and their priests demanded extorted kisses - under duress from the marriage women. It is simple to say that most of the women had strong, honest and blessed marriages in their communities before they were captured. In the dungeon African women had to stay in unhygienic environment/conditions- with no proper furniture. Sometimes the women had to sleep in their faeces with no sanitary towels. Further inhuman treatment in the dungeon was that Africans women were brutally made to crawl/creep at a snail's pace in a small hole before they entered the slave ships. To paint a picture of such degrading and atrocities, one could think about systematic catalogue of bruises, cuts and physical pains that were meted on Africans by Europeans before they were transported to Europe. Three questions must be asked here. (1) Where was the dignity and respect for the Ghanaian women from the days they were captured from their different communities to the dungeon? (2)Where was the dignity and respect for the Ghanaian women in the dungeon? And (3) where was the dignity and respect in the slave ships on the sea to the new world?

In the Slave Ships on the Sea

The inhuman treatment in the dungeon as explored above clearly shows in it the radiance about revolt in the middle passage. Africans were packed like ‘Amane’ fish/sardines. According to Williams (1944) every African was permitted about two feet width and six feet in length in bed. The boat was small and the voyage was long. In one of the small slave ships seventy two (72) African were lock up below the deck during the whole journey, the food in an absence of refrigerator, bad, diseases inevitable. A petition to parliament in 1659 described how the slaves had been locked up below deck among horses that their souls through heat and steam under tropics fainted in them. Also Williams states that one of the most alarming and disturbing of the appalling documents is a notorious 18th century plan for stacking slaves into the slave ship. By statistical calculation the technology of horrors is laid out feet and inches, standing room and breathing space assigned with lethal concern for maximum profit. Five females be seen as four males and three boys and girls as equal to two grown persons.... every man slaves was to be allowed six feet by one foot four ..’ and so it continues until every scrap of flesh is accommodated – 415 in number. But an Act of Parliament allows for 454. So the document concludes that ‘if three more could be wedge among the number represented in the plan, this plan would contain precisely the number which the act directs. Two questions may be asked here: (1) why parliament supported how the slaves should be stacked in such mathematical calculation? (2) How many people would survive under such conditions in the ship?

On arrival in the new world, the oppressions and brutalities continued. The following exposition by Rodney (1981) is essential to further understand the situation of African slaves in the past centuries. From the time of the arrival of the (Christian) Europeans until 1600, about one million African were carried away in slave-ships. The Portuguese were the main architect in slave trade in West Africa. At that time the Portuguese owned Brazil, so they took African’s to Brazil to sell them to Spanish settlers in México, Central America, Southern America, Southern America and Caribbean Islands. Rodney goes on to say that about seven to eight million West Africans found their way across the Atlantic. Oh my good God almighty.

The Dutch also joined the Portuguese and became the leading human slave traders in the 17th century and in the following Century the British became biggest slave traders. Rodney recorded in his famous holy book entitled ‘How Europe underdeveloped Africa’ that one of the British John Hawkins made three visits to West Africa in the 1560s and stole African whom he sold to Spanish in America. When Hawkins returned to England his maximised profit was so fabulous that Queen Elizabeth 1 became interested and directly and actively participated in the subsequent six enterprises. Queen Elizabeth 1 then happily provided a ship called ‘Jesus’ to steal more Africans. Hawkins left for West Africa with the so called ‘Jesus’ ship to nick and pinch Africans, and he returned to England with such dividend that the Queen Knighting him. Rodney points out that Hawkins chose as his coat of arms the representative of an Africans in chains. The writer further states that in 18th Century, by the time slavery were at its climax, Britain slave ship carried most of the slaves whilst the rest were divided between the Dutch, the French, Portuguese and the Danes. In the 19th Century, there was another faces of people who took the leading role in exploiting Africa. The European countries were not as actively involved, but the Europeans who had settled in Brazil, Cuba, and North America. It is wise to think that American had then gained her independence from Britain and it was the new nation of the United States of America which played the enormous role in the last fifty years of the slave trade, taking away African slaves at the supreme charge of scale ever before. To prevent the Africans from escaping, an extraordinary devices including, chains were used excessively to lock their moths, hands and necks. These strategies were also used to punish the Africans. Was this a trade or violent aggression against Africans? It is difficult to believe that human creature should deprive their fellow creatures in such a manner for such gains. These entire misdeeds against Africans were well organised and co-ordinated by my fellow Christians. What a shame?

Christians Planned and Structured Slave Trade

As president Obama mentioned in his short speech in Cape Coast as sketched below; ‘I and my family had an extraordinary tour in the dungeon in the Elmina Castle. And it reminds us of the capacity of human beings in the past to commit great evils. One of the most striking things that I heard was that, in the dungeon in which people (Africans) were kept: there was a church above. Sometimes we can stand by and tolerate. They think that they were doing good but evil’

What did president Obama tell Africans? The most detestable and oppressive experience experienced by the slaves was the active involvement of the missionaries – the Roman Catholic Church and the church of England which is now called Anglican Church in Ghana and other protestants churches. The church employed the ideas in the Bible to justify that African were created by God to be used as slaves - beasts of burden. Here it is wise for one to think about how turbulent the sea-waves might be, so the notorious priests conducted church services using European ‘Bible and God’ to pray for the (slaves) so that they would be transported and arrived safely for the benefit of Europeans. To reiterate my point above, it is easy to speculate that the so called priests constantly institutionalised rapes in the dungeon. The priests could pick majority of the succulent African women in turn, (at anytime) for sexual gratification and satisfaction. Linked to this even on the sea, women who refused to be sexually assaulted and harassed were thrown out of the slave ships into the sea - for the big and small fish. As of now do we know how many Africans were thrown over the sea?

Another interesting juxtaposition that continues to be symbolic is the application of the European Bible principles. It was the Bible that the Europeans used to brainwash and indoctrinate Africans into believing that they did not have souls so, they had to be baptised before God would accept their souls in heaven. One could think about how Europeans have used the Bible to induce Africans for many centuries. Citing Rodney again he states that the Christian Church emphasise on humility, forgiveness, acceptance. During the times of slavery Africans were programmed to belief that all things were bright and beautiful and that the slave masters in their castles (‘Elmina Castle’) were to be accepted as God’s work just as slave living in wretched condition in America, Caribbean, Brazil, Cuba, Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Argentina, Canada etc working twenty hours a day under a whip. As well as in Africa the Missionaries preached that people should turn their cheeks in the face of abuse, exploitation, unfair trading practices, rapes, killings and stealing, and that EVERYTHING WOULD BE ALRIGHT IN THE NEXT WORLD. It is wise to reason and ask this simple question? Why the church-Christians did help to organise Slave Trade? Did they know true God?

Rodney mentions that ‘there were so much economic proceeds to be made in taking slaves from Africa, so the Christians/Europeans ignored to pay attention to their sense of right and wrong. The Christians were conscious about the suffering in the dungeon, on the slave ships and in the slave-plantations of Europe and America, they were aware that to sell other human being could not in any way morally justifiable. Notwithstanding this the Christians church came with excuses for the slave trade. According to Williams & Rodney cited above, the priests were actively in slave trade, especially in Angola and many others owned slaves in America. Rodney intellectually and brilliantly stress that the only reason that Catholic Church could used to justify for their action was that the churches were trying to save Africans souls by baptising the slaves. Rodney describe that the Protestants - churches were the worst of all; for they did not accept the fact that African have souls. Instead African Slaves were like a piece of furniture or domestic animals. The reminiscence of this within the church shows that there was no part of Christian historical development more disgraceful than its support of the Africans to be taken into slavery. He added that to abolish slave trade in which God has legalised and man has sanctioned and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow subjects; but it would be extremely cruelty to the Africans... Africans journey to Europe and West Indies and their treatment there were humanly regulated and to abolish that trade would be to shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

The forgiveness, mercy and humanly regulated scheme clearly show the details described above: and the President Obama’s phrase - One of the most striking things that I heard was that, in the dungeon in which people (Africans) were kept: there was a church’ as I have cited above.

Linked to the above Williams (1944 p. 192) again says that ‘Africans are blessed with a peculiar propensity for the reception of moral and religious instructions, and it does seem to me that there never was a stronger call on any nation than there is now on us to meet this inclination in them, to supply them amply with the means of instructions, to dispatch missionaries, to institute school and to send out Bibles. It is the only compensation in our power. It is an abundant one! We may in this manner recompense all the sorrows and the sufferings we have inflicted and be the means of making in the end their barbarous removal from their own land the greatest of blessings to them’. He goes on to tell us that the ultimate and only radical care of the vices and miseries of Africa is Christianity... We must never forget the paramount value of Evangelisation.’ Read what Williams said above again and think about it.

I leave readers to think about what Williams said. I must stress that the Christians support for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade involving Africans constituted/involved the greatest grotesque crimes that have ever been committed against humanity. However, I must state that the same Bible was also used by both Europeans and Africans to fight against the abolishing of slave trade. Martin Luther King and other leaders also used the Bible to fight for black people around the world.

Power & Control

To further elucidate the point I raised above ‘Africans do not have power anywhere in the world’. It is important to draw a strong correlation between power and control employed by the Europeans on one hand and powerlessness, vulnerability and culpability of the Africans on the other side. The invention of arms/guns and manufactured goods made Europeans too powerful during slavery. Thus power featured prominently to enable Europeans to gain and maintain control over the Africans. The control dimension undermined the authority of African communities. The Europeans militancy also undermined the power of the Africans and later by means of political tricks, patronising and economic dependency. One could also think that the Europeans could support the stronger tribes by providing them with guns to fight against the weakest tribes or communities, so that the weakest tribes could be captured by the stronger tribes to fill the slave ships. It is not an error to say that the Europeans employed divide and rule tactics during the time of slavery. Some of our chiefs were also beheaded in their own lands when they resisted attacks and invasion by Europeans. A typical examples were one of the Ahanta Kings; Nana Badu Bonsu 11 who was murdered by the Dutch colonialists almost two hundred (200) year ago. According to Independent, News Paper, 25 July, 2009, the Europeans bribed one of the tribes by the Europeans (the Dutch) to betray Nana Badu Bonsu 11. Nana Badu Bonsu 11 was captured, beheaded and his head was disconnected and sent to Holland to be studied by researchers who were expert in the field of phrenology – the study of human skull for what believed to unearth about personality.

Another greatest advantage that made Europeans to control the numerous tribes in Africa was different languages that naturally existed among various tribes. The cultural domination and suppression was a way of controlling Africans, in the form of restricting Africans from using their indigenous language and artistic expression while constantly promoting dominant European languages. This re-echoes how West Africa was plundered by the European colonial exploiters from the 15th Century up to today.

Another severe weapon that the European used as their propaganda was the demonization of Africa as a dark continent. Europeans missionaries and writers used their strong propaganda machines through other ‘false research’ to stigmatise Africans as uncivilised, stupid, and evils, barbaric and unintelligent. This philosophy was promoted with the help of the European priests who enabled their people to do whatever they wanted to do with Africans by calling Africans as niggers and monkeys and many more in the new world. As president Obama’s states in our parliament; ‘The West has treated Africans as patrons. I say I know full well the past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world.’

What Africans Should/Must Demand AS A RIGHT? When I compare and take on board in regard to Africans’ political, social and economic relations in the past with Europeans, it appears to me that the abuses of Africans during slavery were overwhelming and incomparable to any human sufferings in history. Can anyone deny this fact? The current generation must know this fact – historical experience. The past should be taught from generation to generation. I robustly recommend this. And I believe that people awareness of this historical development may promote patriotism and development in Ghana.

Your broad knowledge and rational reflection of this piece of work may confirm my taught above. The sad fad is that most of these crimes and abuses that the Europeans committed against Africans during slavery were undocumented. By our own volition, our own neglect and intellectual ignorance; we do not know much of this experience. Even the suffering and experience of Africans today in many part of the world has a direct correlation to slavery. We must learn from the past to so that we can move forward. I think that Africans experience at the time of slavery is incomparable to any information or beliefs in any recorded documents, books, history, beliefs and understanding. In other words it is my belief that no human ‘race’ experience in history can be compared to/with Africans experience during slavery. We need to recognise that. This must equally be recognised and compensated as holocaust. We need reparation from Europe and America. Why do Africans have to demand reparation as a right? Rodney provides answer here.

‘We have gone through a historical experience through which by all accounts we should have been wiped out. We have been subjected to genocidal practices. Million raped from the West Africa continent, a system of slavery which was designed to kill people’... (p. 68). This historical experience immensely contributed to (Africans) powerlessness and consequently; Africa loss of control.

Reflections

Is there any change on the part of European policies towards African in terms of our trades, negotiations, partnerships and religion? Do Europeans want Africa to develop? Do we have factories that produce guns in Africa? Is divide and rule still going on? Do we know our history? Do we have language that can help us to develop? Why do we accept guns to depopulate ourselves and also try eliminating black race? Which countries are promoting wars in Africa? Do Africans think about what will happen in the next hour, weeks, month, year, decade and century and do we know what will happen to black people between these times? Are Africans making attempts to be creative in our own environment? I wish I have a belt on my waist and sit in my chair to answer these questions.

As I look through the vision and ahead of Africa I am filled with a sense of risk and hopelessness emerging in the next century. Look: not only wars that is depopulating Africans but also the plague of HIV/Aids is gradually wiping our ‘race’ in this part of the continent Look at how HIV/Aids have infected our brothers and sisters and children in Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya and Soweto. The horrors keep coming upon us based on our own destruction and neglect. Why HIV/Aids pandemic is in Africa more than the rest of the world?

I need to say this because we appear not to learn and manage the resources we have well for the betterment of the entire country. Our leaders’ daily dependence on external institutions continues to create self-inflicted wretchedness and deaths for majority of us. The condition and situation of about 90% of the Ghanaian population as compare to few elites are miserable and appalling. What is wrong with our leaders? What Ghanaians - Africans need is that: we need to understand our problems, think and change our attitudes; so that we can liberate ourselves from five hundred years of psychological and mental bondage and tricks. We must also ensure the continuity of our ‘race’ in future. If we think that Ghana belongs to Ghanaians and Africa belongs to Africans; why can’t we think and create development for our people then? Africans have brain power for development as any human being: why are we so stupid not to use our brain power and continue to look for other people. Kwame Nkrumah and Bob Marley advised Africans to ‘emancipate ourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds. Is this quotation different from what President Obama said in parliament ‘’Africa future is up to the Africans’

I am not sure whether Ghanaians will listen to me or not. I am not cognisant of that. All I am mindful of is; if I do not write anything about it: I will be a great treachery and betrayal to my fellow Ghanaians and Africans. As the world is changing; why can’t we think and create development for our people’s future? I strongly recommend that: we must and should demand our power back. God Bless Kwame Nkrumah’s soul, God blesses Ghana and God Bless Africans. Thank You.

By: Kwabena Boateng Jacaboba,

Email: [email protected]