Sitting in AAAS 122, the class I TA for, I thought about our discussion about the two narratives regarding slavery: one from the African point of view and the other from the African-American perspective. AAAS122 focuses on Africa after slavery, therefore covers the affects of colonialism and imperialism. For African-Americans, many see the slave trade as a lost of identity and the reason we were so brutality treated during slavery, later reconstruction, then Jim Crow, later Civil Rights, the Black Power movement, urban rebellions and contemporary judicial discrepancies. The stereotypical sentiment is, “If it wasn’t for the slave trade, we would still be in our indigenous place, where we belong, living harmoniously in the ‘Mother Country’. If it wasn’t for whites shipping us over here, we would not have gone through all of this racist tragedy.” The narrative presented to us implies that after African people were extracted from their homeland, life went back to “normal”. But in actuality, colonialism may have been worse that African-American lives after emancipation.
African peasants are evicted from their land and confined in reservations ruled by chiefs. These chiefs were often employed by the European government. The European government implemented rules that were, for all intent and purposes, slavery. Colonialism presented high taxes, forced labor, mutilation and death. Peasants had to pay taxes to the European government. Forced taxes included hut taxes that could be paid in cash or crops, then poll taxes that were charged to males and could only be paid in cash. These taxes went to Europeans administrators and not to the community. Often taxes were raised while low wages remained the same. The cash to pay the taxes had to come from low-wage employment with European businesses. The jobs for the peasants could be working in mines or on infrastructure like the railroad system. Railroads were not built for African people’s usage. Blacks were working to create a system to better export African resources for European businesses. The working conditions on railroad systems and in mines were extremely dangerous. At one point over 30,000 Africans died while working on railroads.
In order for Europeans to make sure that Africans spent most of their time working in the hazardous conditions, Europeans created the pass system. Pass systems were introduced to control the movements of African people. Africans needed permits to move from the reservations (land now owned by the Europeans) to their work sites (the Europeans railroad work sites, rubber plantations, and mines). The “Pass System” consisted of ID books that only Black Africans had to present. The books stated the name, the “tribe”, the European administrator assigned to the individual, and the place that they work when they are not home. If an African was found anywhere else it was illegal. A repercussion could be losing their jobs. If they lost their jobs then they couldn’t pay taxes and ultimately had to move to the poverty-stricken reservations. This maintained controlled over Africans to make sure they produced for Europeans.
The most horrific may have been forced labor. African peasants were forced to grow crops that could only be sold to the European government at low prices. If Africans resisted working on the railroads, plantations or mines they were faced with physical repercussions: lynching, severed limbs and other forms of mutilation. Those who did work had to meet quotas and work long hours to pay taxes. Because these taxes paid the salaries of European government, often the taxes were raised but payment for Africans remained the same.
Considering some of the events that occurred after the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, why do you think many African people see slavery as a minor part of history?
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