Africa's shame: its hidden role in the slave trade

WHENEVER the topic of slavery is raised, it is usually the Trans-Atlantic trade, yet it is only a fragment of a much larger story of human bondage and suffering.

- MARK LEVIN

TIPPU Tip, the most important and powerful slave trader from Zanzibar.

(Supplied)

There are also popular misconceptions about it. The longest trader across the Atlantic was not the British, but the Portuguese who accounted for 47% of all slaves transported across the Atlantic, mainly to Brazil, numbering some 5.8 million Africans.

Of course this does not lessen Britain's guilt, being responsible as it was for the transport of about 3.2 million Africans, mainly to the Americas and the Caribbean.

Much less known was the sizeable Indian Ocean trade which was responsible for the transport of over 12.5 million Africans, a figure slightly higher than that of the Atlantic trade. The Trans Sahara trade at over 9.3 million was not far behind. Then there was Africa's internal slavery which survives in at least five countries: Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Sudan.

In Unbroken Chains: a 5000 year history of African enslavement (Hurst, 2025) former BBC Africa Editor, Martin Plaut, provides a much-needed survey of slavery in Africa. He reveals to the general reader the extraordinary length and scope of African slavery and how ingrained it is in many societies.

Africans engaged in the trade centuries before external powers intervened, yet they and Muslim societies resist engaging with the subject. It is as if their overwhelming silence erases their own role and complicity.

Among the earliest authenticated forms of servitude was down the Nile River and across the Sahara. Dating back 5000 years, it has continued almost without interruption.

Slaves performed many functions in Egyptian society from servants and concubines, to soldiers defending the nation from its enemies. However, contrary to popular belief, it was not slaves who built the pyramids but skilled labourers who were both prized and respected.