They eat, drink, shit, sleep in the dungeon, according to the ship's schedule first, short weeks, long months. To reduce the management of the trouble, after entering the dungeon they are not allowed to move at will, and can not wash and bathe. To avoid people eating all day long, bored with life, the jailers always ensure that they are constantly in a state of hunger and weakness.
There is nothing here, no bed, no chair, no water, no light, only a very high and very small window. Sitting on the floor and looking up, through the hole, about the size of a copper plate, came an inch of light from the outside world.
The light was so faint that I happened to be visiting on a blackout day (Cape Coast Castle was later declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and many parts of it have been refurbished and re-lit), and when I entered the dungeon, I was instantly blinded and stumbled on the uneven floor, bumping into the thick moldy walls several times. And here they were, more than a thousand people filling a space of about 100 square feet, vomit, excrement, sweat, and corpse stench trapped in the hot air. They sat in the darkness and suffocation of the silent spread of pestilence and unrest, feeling their dying companions collapse one by one while waiting for death, or, most likely, a future worse than death.
In 1807, the British Empire, the most powerful nation at the time, officially abolished the slave trade, putting an end to the overwhelmingly dominant slave trade, marking the beginning of the domino effect of the constitutional abolition of the slave trade by the European powers, and the end of the four-century-long Atlantic slave trade.
Two hundred years have passed since 2007. How many wounds can be healed by two hundred years? How many clouds of suspicion and lies can be witnessed to be finally cleared up? Or can we analyze how the slave trade changed the fate of the African continent and the world? Two hundred years, some of the tragedies forgotten, some of the passions subdued may be a focus of time and space, not too far away, for one to crawl through the tangled and tangled times.
Slavery was not unique to Africa; systems of human bondage had existed for a long time; as in most places where slavery existed, African societies also sold slaves. Before the Atlantic slave trade, West Africans crossed the Sahara Desert and sold black slaves to North Africa in the seventh century AD. The Sahara trade lasted until the early twentieth century, transporting an estimated eight to ten million black slaves. At about the same time, Central Africans also sold slaves east of the Indian Ocean.
The scale of the Atlantic slave trade, however, was undoubtedly greater than that of the present. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, no other slave trade was comparable to it.
No Buyer, No Seller
From the 1440s to the 1460s, Portugal, lacking human resources, was the first European country to import black slaves. Spain followed suit and joined the trade. In 1503, the Spaniards brought the first black slaves from Europe to America; in 1518, the first ship sailed directly from Africa to America.
Since then, the number of people transported in the Atlantic slave trade gradually increased. By 1970, an average of 25,000 slaves crossed the Atlantic each year; at its peak in the 1780s, an average of 85,000 slaves arrived in the Americas each year. The actual number of people involved in the Atlantic slave trade has always been disputed. It is generally estimated that at least 12-15 million slaves arrived in the Americas alive during these 400 years. But the figures do not include the lives lost in wars of plunder, on the trek from the interior to the coast, in disease-ridden dungeons, or on the Atlantic crossing.
"Clearly, the Atlantic slave trade had a serious impact on the growth of the African population. Hakim A. Adi, of Middlesex University in London, said, "It is clear that the Atlantic slave trade has seriously affected the growth of African populations. From the fifteenth century to the nineteenth century, Africa's population was almost stagnant," says Professor Hakim Adi of Middlesex University in London.
Without the slave trade, it is estimated that in 1850 the population of Africa would have been between 46 million and 53 million; but because of the slave trade, it was only 25 million.
Many authoritative historians, such as Herbert Klein, have written that the population of Africa was between 46 and 53 million in 1850. Many authoritative historians, such as Herbert Klein, believe that "the war for slaves had a long-term economic cost in terms of declining farmers, abandoned farmland, and the uncontrolled exportation of the young and able-bodied labor force. The loss of large numbers of people and the disruption of creativity and productivity were the main reasons for Africa's economic backwardness.
However, many historians, such as Philip Curtin, have argued that the loss of population and the interruption of creativity and productivity were the main causes of Africa's economic decline. Philip Curtin argues that "severe depopulation occurred in only a few places and lasted only a few decades before returning to natural normality. That being the case, there is no longer-term economic impact.
A relatively uncontroversial point is that most of the slaves came from West Africa, some 5,600 kilometers from present-day Senegal to Angola; among them, the former Gold Coast (present-day Cana), the Slave Coast (including present-day eastern Cana), Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and the United States. The most important places were the Gold Coast (today's Cana), the Slave Coast (today's eastern Cana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria), and Cameroon.
Until the middle of the 17th century, Portugal, the originator of the slave trade, had a monopoly over almost the entire slave market. In the 1640s, Britain, France, and the Netherlands began to share power. By the eighteenth century, the British were the leaders and continued to be so until the end of the Atlantic slave trade.
There is no doubt that such a complicated trade system was not formed by Europeans alone. The Europeans, with their powerful guns, were not capable of going up into the mountains and capturing millions of Africans. Initially, they also attempted to invade the cities and plunder the people, but they were not able to compete with the huge Africans; they also proved that the only way is to work together.
Before long, Europeans and Africans had established a systematic trade pattern that remained unchanged for 100 years. It was one of the basic principles that "Europeans were mere carriers" and they were forbidden to interfere in African politics or to enter the interior to search for "goods". The coastal castles and harbors were where European traders traded with African traffickers. The impressive Cape Coast Castle was the administrative headquarters of the British in West Africa and the center of trade during the heyday of the slave trade. Of the forty-five castles built by the Europeans on the West African coast, thirty-two were located in Cana, where almost all of the most powerful European traders: the British, the French, the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danes, and the Portuguese, owned slave castles.
Here, Europeans examined slaves and Africans viewed goods, and buyers and sellers bargained. The most popular goods at the time included weapons, guns, spirits, clothing, utensils, knives, coins, ornaments, salt, and paper.
In the face of the vast array of imported goods and the lucrative profits, many African rulers tried to stop the trade. As early as 1526, King Afonso of the DRC, who had good relations with the Portuguese, complained to the King of Portugal about the kidnapping of his people by Portuguese slave traders.
In 1630, Njingha Mambanti of Ndongo complained to the Portuguese king about the kidnapping of his people. In 1630, Queen Njingha Mbandi of Ndongo drove the Europeans out of her territory. In 1720, King Agaja Trudo of Dahomey not only opposed trade but also attacked European castles. Other African rulers, such as Kimpha Vital of the DRC, were also opposed to trade. Other African rulers such as Donna Beatriz Kimpa Vita of the DRC and Abd al-Qadir of present-day northern Senegal were opposed to trade and attacked European castles. Abd al-Qadir in northern Senegal had fought against European trade invasion.
But in the end, these forces were unable to save the day. The people of the African continent flowed like a torrent of water to the other side without return.
At the Door of No Return at Cape Coast Castle, I met Jackson, who had come from the United States to "discover his roots": "I know, of course, wherein Africa my ancestors came from. What castle were they kept in? What kind of language did they speak? What kind of food did they eat? What songs did they sing? It is impossible. What I found when I set foot on this continent was unbearable bewilderment."
Once, his ancestors may have passed through a long tunnel from some dungeon to the "gate of no return" and never saw their homeland again. The slaves from all over the world changed hands and names several times, and much of the evidence to verify their identity was misplaced; the slaves who were kidnapped and sold at that time were mostly illiterate, and the records of European officials and merchants inevitably contradicted the facts, and many of the details of the events were lost.
"The journey to the ship was terrifying. All I could hear was the rattling of shackles, the slapping of long whips, the moaning, and crying. ......" The Canaanite slave Ottobar Gugino, who was sold by African slave traders to European merchants for a coat, a gun, and a few bullets, was a slave of the European trade. The memoirs of Ottobah Cugoano, who was sold by an African slave trader to a European trader for a coat, a gun, and a few bullets, add some dark notes to the brightly repaired doors and whitewashed walls before us.
Outside the castle, the wind is calm and the waves are quiet. Fishermen laughing and joking as they dry their nets, women walking and chatting with groceries on their heads, vendors sitting next to rows of wooden souvenirs of slave ships, and children playing soccer, sand, and chasing the waves in the afternoon sun, all shouting "Obroni! Foreigners! Welcome! Welcome!) Welcome!
Despite this painful past, the warmth and friendliness of the Ghanaians towards foreigners are sometimes overwhelming and quite disconcerting. "That's because of the color of your skin. Ghanaians don't treat Ghanaians, or any black people for that matter, so well. My new friend Friday said, with a hint of derision at the corner of his mouth.
The mop-headed young man, also known as "Friday" after former U.N. Secretary Annan - the predominant Akan ethnic group in Ghana is usually named after the day a baby is born, "Kofi Annan. The "Kofi" in "Kofi Annan" is "Friday," a classical drummer who is somewhat unpopular and cynical: "When you become famous in European and American music festivals, film festivals, and literary awards, there are, or rather, 'only' people in Africa who appreciate you and tout you. Why should our black culture be measured by white standards?
Why can't Africans be more open and confident about their traditional culture? Even the so-called American trends, such as blues and jazz music, which Africans are now promoting, do not have their roots in the African soul?
Not many people know that Ghana was once a kingdom full of gold, so rich that Europeans were dumbfounded, and forged the brilliant Ashanti culture; Benan once built the palace of Abomey and brewed the elegant Dahomey culture. The Abomey palace in Benan was a jewel, and the elegant culture of Dahomey was also developed.
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