Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T12:59:16.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Atlantic Slave Trade Was Not a “Black-on-Black Holocaust”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Lansiné Kaba
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article, which derives from the wisdom of my Koranic teachers in Kankan, Guinea, as well as the dedication of the Africanist community, discusses the question of the representation of Africa in general, and especially the claim made by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., that Africans committed a Holocaust-type crime by selling other blacks to whites. To refute this allegation, I rely on my familiarity with the literature on the quasi-universality of slavery in human history and on the Atlantic slave trade. This leads me to assert that, though painful to acknowledge, some Africans of the slave trade era did participate as pivotal middlemen in the brutal, ignominious, and peculiar trade that drastically changed the image of the black in the white mind. But the wars and raiding that resulted in the enslavement of millions of Africans were not fought according to any theory of racial or ethnic purity such as the one that would emerge as a key Nazi ideology. Furthermore, sound historical evidence points to the European and American origins of the slave trade. Far from being an accident, the slave trade was a significant part of modern European expansion. The white businessmen, ship owners, mariners, and plantation owners played the dominant role in this business, a point to which Gates—unlike W.E.B. Du Bois, in whose grand tradition he aspires to follow—pays only lip service. Therefore, the notion of a black “Holocaust” perpetrated by Africans in the era of the slave trade is a flawed and objectionable analogy which tends to “relativize” the Holocaust and to sow discord in the relationship between Africans and black people of the diaspora.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Dans cette version de mon discours présidentiel écrit en hommage aux érudits de ma ville natale de Kankan en Guinée ainsi qu’aux Africanistes de toutes origines, je me penche sur la question du mode de représentation de l’Afrique non pas dans les medias, mais dans la pensée des auteurs. J’ai jugé utile de discuter l’opinion présentée par Henry Louis Gates, Jr. selon laquelle les Africains de l’ére de la traite atlantique qui ont vendu leurs frères aux Blancsauraient commis un crime du genre de celui que les Nazis ont perpétré au moment de l’Holocauste. Basé sur une historiographie abondante, le texte admet la quasi-universalité de l’esclavage dans l’histoire humaine, ainsi que la participation effective de certains Africains dans la traite comme intermédiaires. Mais, les guerres qui alimentaient l’esclavage n’étaient pas fondées sur les principes de pureté raciale et ethnique que les Nazis allaient plus tard systématiquement appliquer. Comme l’esclavage et la traite atlantique faisaient partie intégrante de l’expansion européenne au Nouveau Monde, force est de reconnaître le rôle déterminant et primordial des Européens et des Américains en tant qu’investisseurs, navigateurs et propriétaires de bateaux et de plantations. En négligeant ces aspects historiques, l’analyse que Gates donne de l’esclavage diffère de celle de l’illustre érudit pan-africaniste noir américain, W.E.B. Du Bois, dont il aspire pourtant à suivre le bel exemple. En conclusion, l’idée d’un “Holocauste noir par les Noirs à l’ére de la traite atlantique” est inadmissible du point de vue intellectuel et même tend à “relativiser” l’Holocauste et à créer la discorde dans les rapports entre les Africains et les Noirs du Nouveau Monde.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , April 2001 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2001

References

Akinjogbin, A. 1972. Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 1708–1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yusuf, Ali Abdullah. 1934. The Holy Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary. Lahore: Shaikh Muhammed Ashraf.Google Scholar
Arcin, André. 1911. Histoire de la Guinée française. Paris: A. Challamel.Google Scholar
Arhin, K. 1967. “The Structure of Great Ashanti.” Journal of African History 8: 65–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, Boubacar. 1988. La Sénégambie du XVe au XIXe Stècle: Traite négrière, Islam et conquête coloniale. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1980. La chambre noire. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Binger, Louis Gustave. 1892. Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée par le pays de Kong et le Mossi. Paris: Hachette.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blyden, Edward Wilmot. 1887. Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. London: W.B. Whittingham.Google Scholar
Brown, A. R. 1974. “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe.” American Historical Review 79 (4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caillié, René. [1827] 1965. Journal d’un voyage à Tombouctou et Jenné. Vol. 1. Paris: Anthropos.Google Scholar
Césaire, Aimé. [1939] 1983. “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.” In The Collected Poetry of Aimé Césaire, trans. Eshleman, Clayton and Smith, Annette. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cissé, Youssouf Tata, and Kamissoko, Wa. 1988–1991. La grande geste du Mali, des origines à la fondation de l’empire. Paris: Editions Karthala.Google Scholar
Cissé, Youssouf Tata, and Kamissoko, Wa. 1988. La gloire du Mali. Paris: Editions Karthala.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. 1969 The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. “Europe and the Atlantic World.” 1995. In Adelman, Jeremy, ed., Colonial Legacies: The Problem of Persistence in Latin-American History, 15–27. New York: Roudedge.Google Scholar
Daaku, K. 1970. Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600–1700: A Study of African Reaction to European Trade. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dike, K. O. 1956. Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W.E.B. 1896. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870. New York: Longmans, Green.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eltis, David. 2000. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fornek, Scott. 2000. “Does U.S. Owe Debt to Blacks?” Chicago Sun-Times. 04 28.Google Scholar
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. [1830] 1975. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Translated by Nisbet, H. B. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, A. G. 1973. An Economic History of West Africa. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Humblot, P. 1921. “Kankan, métropole de la Haute-Guinée.” Renseignements coloniaux et documents de l'Afrique française no. 6.Google Scholar
Hurston, Zora Neal. [1942] 1997. “Dust Track on a Road.” In Gates, Henry Louis Jr., McKay, Nellie Y., Baker, Houston A. Jr., et al., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 1050–65. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Kaba, Lansiné. 1995. Lettre à un ami sur la politique et le hon usage du pouvoir. Paris: Présence Africaine.Google Scholar
Kaba, Lansiné. 1997. “Cheikh Mouhammad Chérif ou le devoir d’obéissance et la colonisation, 1923–1955.” In Robinson, David and Triaud, Jean-Louis, eds., Le temps desmarabouts: Itinéraires et stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale française, v.1880–1960. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Klein, Martin. 1970. “Slavery, the Slave Trade and Legitimate Commerce.” Études d’histoire africaine 2.Google Scholar
Kouyaté, Sori Kandia. 1968. Épopée du Mandingue. 33–1.p. record Conakry: Syliphone.Google Scholar
la Roncière, Charles de. [1933] 1995. Nègres et négriers. Paris: Editions des Portiques.Google Scholar
Martin, Gaston. 1948. Histoire de l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Mounier, Emmanuel. 1962. “L'Éveil de l'Afrique noire: la route noire.” In Oeuvres deMounier, tome III, 1940–1950, 299. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Nation of Islam. 1991. The Secret Relationship between Jews and Blacks. Boston: Latimer Associates.Google Scholar
Patterson, Orlando. 1982. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Person, Yves. 1968. Samori, une révolution dyula. Vol. 1. Dakar: IFAN.Google Scholar
Pressac, Jean-Claude. 1993. Les crématoires d’Auschwitz: la machine de meurtre de masse. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Pruneau de Pommegorge, Antoine Edmé (Joseph, ). 1789. Description de la Nigritie. Paris.Google Scholar
Richburg, Keith B. 1997. Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rinchon, Dieudonné, père. 1929. La traite et l’esclavage des gongolaispar les Européens. Brussels: Edition de L’Expansion Belge.Google Scholar
Rodney, Walter. 1970. A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545 to 1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wheatiey, Phillis. [1773] 1997. “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” In Gates, Henry Louis Jr., McKay, Nellie Y., Baker, Houston A. Jr., et al., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 171. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Eric. 1997. Europe and the Peoples without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar