Photo: Khalid Abdul Muhammad, center, addresses the Million Youth March in Harlem, Sept. 4, 1999. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
Not far from what was once West Africa’s main slave port in Benin’s city of Ouidah, stands a statue of Francisco Félix de Souza, regarded as the father of the city. His legacy, however, is complicated. After arriving from Brazil in the late 1700s, he became one of the biggest slave merchants in the transatlantic slave trade, selling Black Africans.
For over 200 years, powerful kings in what is now Benin captured and sold slaves to European merchants. The trade largely stopped by the end of the 19th century. The descendants of slave merchants remain influential, reported The Washington Post.
Because Benin and other West African countries were involved in the slave trade financially, some felt not only the U.S. owed Black Americans reparations but Africa as well. One of those who seemed to believe this was the late activist Dr. Khalid Muhammad, formerly of the Nation of Islam and later of the New Black Panther Party.
Several African countries are seeking financial repair from Europe over the slave trade, but those in agreement with Muhammad say Africa owes a debt as well.
Several African countries are seeking financial repair from Europe over the slave trade, but those in agreement with Muhammad, say Africa owes a debt as well.
Many have debated this, but historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University have estimated that of the Africans captured and then sold as slaves to the New World in the Atlantic slave trade, around 90% were enslaved by fellow Africans who sold them to European traders.
In an opinion piece in 2010 for The New York Times, Henry Louis Gates said that Black Americans have tended “to choosing “to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in ‘Roots.’ The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike, he wrote.’
During one speech, Muhammad stressed that Africa “owes” Black Americans reparations. “Africa, too, must do something for her sons and daughters here in the diaspora in the Western world. Some Africana brag about the stave trade….how they acquired (wealth from the slave trade),” he said in an undated video clip shared recently on X/Twitter by Black Capital.
Benin, for example, captured and sold slaves to Portuguese, French, and British merchants. The slaves were usually men, women and children from rival tribes. They were bound and put onto boats bound for Brazil, Haiti, and the United States.
Photo: Khalid Abdul Muhammad, center, addresses the Million Youth March in Harlem, Sept. 4, 1999. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
