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Post by Tukuler al~Takruri on Sept 1, 2010 16:49:37 GMT -5
Yes, and a government official from there issued a formal apology behind it. Their role in the trade was not benign or haphazard it was profit motivated. NEWS
Benin Officials Apologize For Role In U.S. Slave Trade
By From Tribune News Services. | May 1, 2000
Officials from the West African nation Benin apologized during a ceremony here for their country's role in once selling fellow Africans by the millions to white slave traders. The group is making several stops in Virginia and Washington, D.C., to publicize President Mathieu Kerekou's recent apologies for his country's participation in the slave trade. "We cry for forgiveness and reconciliation," said Luc Gnacadja, minister of environment and housing for Benin. "The slave trade is a shame, and we do repent for it." It's not such a great movie but you may want to watch Adanggaman. I read somewhere that the kingdom of Dahomey is responsible for shipping the majority of Africans to the US, is that true? |
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Post by anansi on Sept 1, 2010 18:52:21 GMT -5
Since Dahomey is the home of vodou many Afro-Caribbeans must descend from there because vodou is practiced in the Caribbean more extensively than in the US, although this could be because such religious practices were forcefully suppressed by the slavemaster. Very true, but I think that there are probably just as many Afro Americans from that region also. The thing is that the religion was able to survive in the Catholic colonies because they could be hidden behind the saints. Protestant areas like Jamaica for example didn't have this advantage and so you don't find it there, (although some practices were able to survive), but you do find aspects of it in Trinidad. Not as much but we still have some..ie Obeah and Pocomania,Mayal,Kumina  www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070628/news/news1.htmlAnd Nani the Maroon leader a worrior and a reported Obeah woman. |
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Post by Tukuler al~Takruri on Sept 2, 2010 11:31:28 GMT -5
Of course admitting guilt is not tantamount to being the most guilty. That was neither stated or implied. Still Benin (Dahomey) was one of the few states who were extremely proactive in the business. Nor are they the only modern African nation to apologize for their role in perhaps the greatest crime against humanity. Since complete account books detailing numbers does not exist we will never know exactly how many Africans were enslaved and landed in the western hemisphere. I just think that a state whose economy was based on the trade handled more capita than those who were spottily involved. I may be wrong. The original Benin was also an "industry" leader until economics dictated they retain manpower at home and they ceased trade. The below is not meant to be proof that Dahomey was the volume leader in the heinous business that drained the region of so much human potential but there's a reason the general area was tagged as the Slave Coast by the Euros.
Over time Benin's coast developed into the largest center of the slave trade in Africa, run by the Fon people, who dominated the Dahomey government and actively sold their neighboring peoples to the Europeans. As the slave trade increased in volume (10,000–20,000 slaves shipped off per day), the coast of Benin became known as the Slave Coast. Around this time the port cities of Porto-Novo and Ouida were founded and quickly became the largest and most commercially active cities in the country, while Abomey became the Dahomey capital.
The cited volume figure seems fantastic. More soberly, Patience Essah simply posits that 1/5 of the total of exported Africans originated from the Bight of Benin region (which of course includes more than Dahomey alone).  |
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Post by franklin on Sept 24, 2010 17:29:52 GMT -5
The original Benin was also an "industry" leader until economics dictated they retain manpower at home and they ceased trade. You have it reversed, Benin was able to retain it's industries so they never became dependent on the slave trade. See "The Slave Trade, Depopulation and Human Sacrifice in Benin History" James D. Graham www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cea_0008-0055_1965_num_5_18_3035The slave trade became a big deal beginning in the 17th century. Plus the slave coast was also importing gold and exporting slaves, the Gold coast became like a slave coast The below is not meant to be proof that Dahomey was the volume leader in the heinous business that drained the region of so much human potential but there's a reason the general area was tagged as the Slave Coast by the Euros. Even without the export of human beings from Africa the cheap imports would have been very damaging to African industries and societies. It was also a burden on the wealth of European nations. I would like for anyone here to name any trade in history that was as wasteful as throwing out expensive cargo. Even Adam Smith said that it was cheaper to pay wages than to maintain slaves but I'll talk about that later “The South Sea Company and the Restoration of Credit: Slavery, Public Opinion, and Party Politics” Chapter 5: economix.u-paris10.fr/pdf/seminaires/H2S/Wennerlind.pdfSee page 45: [In Defoe’s mind, this created a situation in which “the Trade for Negroes to the Plantations became the most precarious and oppressive thing imaginable; the Uncertainty of the Supply put the Colonies often to great Extremities to carry on their Works, and the Dearness of them when they came, became an Excessive Unsufferable Burthen and Grievance to our Plantation Trade.... Footnote: Some, like the anonymous author of The Trade to Africa Considered (1714), even made an attempt to question the RAC’s claim that the purchasing price of slaves had increased since 1698, claiming that it was really the price of woollens that had fallen, thus making it appear as though the slaves were more expensive.]] Also please see: “The Royal African Company” By K. G. Davies books.google.com/books?id=w9sH0h391c8C&lpg=PA75&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q&f=false[Thus in the later 'seventies and in the 'eighties the company spent each year on the purchase of goods for export and on shipping a sum appreciably larger than was left of its share-capital after the Adventures had been bought out…
… Even if all these plantation debts had proved good, which many did not, the consequence of giving long credit was to slow down the turnover of capital until a gap often of years intervened between the sowing of the seed, in the form of exports to Africa, and the reaping of the harvest, in the shape of returns from the West Indies] |
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Post by anansi on Oct 20, 2010 10:26:13 GMT -5
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Post by anansi on Oct 20, 2010 10:51:43 GMT -5
 Behanzin, King of Dahomey, 1892. Artist: Henri Meyer This statue of a man with the head and torso of a shark, represents Béhanzin, the last king of Dahomey (Benin).  Lion - symbol of King Glele of Dahomey (1858-1889) King Kpengla and amazons |
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Post by udhetari on Oct 20, 2010 17:23:12 GMT -5
is this an ancient egyptian woman? Attachments:
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Post by anansi on Jan 5, 2013 1:53:34 GMT -5
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I read somewhere that the kingdom of Dahomey is responsible for shipping the majority of Africans to the US, is that true?
