₦airaland Forum

Slavery among the Igbo

Published Date
May 1, 2004

Resource Type

Archival Resource, Primary Source

Geographic

Africa
This is a Primary Source
ExpandExpand

This resource was developed in 2004 as part of “Biafra, Nigeria, the West and the World” by David Trask.

The reminiscences in this reading reach back to events at the turn of the twentieth century or earlier. It raises a number of issues about how the traditional economy operated and the role of slavery within that world. It is also important to note which people were made slaves and which people were exempt from that possibility.
Nkwonto Nwuduaku, aged c. 60 in Urunnebo, Enugwu-Ukwu 16 October 1974

From: Elizabeth Isichei, Igbo Worlds An Anthology of Oral Histories and Historical Descriptions (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978) 30-34

Our people, especially my village, Urunnebo, are called Owaofia wapulu ezi, meaning people that travel into distant lands. This is because our people were long distance traders. They also went to different places to cleanse abominations, as well as to confer Ozo titles on people. My village Urunnebo migrated from Agukwu and we carried with us these traditions and customs, and have been exercising them until now. Thus, as I have said, we were long distance traders, and traded in various commodities like slaves, ufie, a red substance people rubbed on their skins, livestock, salt, iron implements, and, later, palm produce.

Our people traded extensively in slaves. It was a dangerous trade, but very profitable. It was dangerous, because you must be strong enough to overpower your victim. Secondly, you must be prepared to risk your life, wresting children from their parents, and so on. In fact, slaves were obtained in various ways – by kidnapping, through wars, through punishment for crimes and breach of taboos, for failure to pay debts. Parents even sold their children, for want of food.

My father told me that one occasion he followed his father on one of these expeditions that took them from Enugwu-Ukwu to Agbaja, and thence to Ubulu, and then to Eke Imoha in Abakaliki. When they came to Agbaja, one man wanted an .Ozo title to be conferred on him. He said that the members of his age grade were deriding him because he had not taken an .Ozo title. This man had to sell two of his children in exchange for the Ozo title. There was another episode when a man had so many children, and he had to ask them to buy one of his children in exchange for one cow.

But whatever the case was, these children were not told that they had been sold. Their parents would ask them to help their family friends convey their goods to market. These children were pampered until they got to Afo. Nkwuleto market, in Ubulu., where slaves were sold openly.

My father, continued that when they arrived with these children in this market, they were asked to look after a few worthless commodities. Then the slave dealers, mostly Aro people, would pretend that they were pricing those goods, when they were really surveying the children. They then came back to my father and grandfather, and a price was fixed—some items of European goods. My father said that after they had received these goods they disappeared, and that was the last he saw of these children.

In fact, the destination of our slave trade depended on the age of the slaves. For instance, kidnappers did not carry their victims far because of the fear that they might be caught, or that their victims might overpower them. In such cases, you know that the slave dealers must have tipped the kidnappers and would be waiting in a nearby place. But those who committed crimes, or breaches of taboos, were carried off by the agbridu people (law enforcement officers) and sold at Ifite Nibo market, near Awka.

Our people had no internal market for slaves. You know we belong to Umunri and it would be contrary to our tradition for slaves to be sold in our market. Yes, at times our people kept slaves for domestic purposes. In such a case the owner of the slave might sell one of the children of the slaves.

In olden days, our people traded in ufie (camwood). It was very important to our people. This ufie was got from a variety of trees, like aboshi, akpalata and even .ukpaka. What happened was that the dealers in this commodity often went about scraping the bark of these trees. Il the inner parts of these trees were scarlet, they were cut down and allowed to dry. These trees, now completely red, were cut into different sizes and brought to market. Ufie was a very costly commodity.

It was used as a sort of pomade, by both young girls and elderly women, before the coming of the Europeans, and even after they established their presence. Our people believed that it not only made the body smooth but also acted as a blood tonic.

It was also used for burial purposes, especially in burying titled men and elders. The body of the deceased was rubbed with ufie before burial, and after the burial, umu ada (his daughters) as well as his wives would continue to wear ufie for iu ili na ato (two native months). It was also rubbed in by nursing mothers, and any woman who wanted to perform the izu afia nwa (when a mother would come to the market to let people know she had a new child). The woman would rub on this ufie and come out on Nkwo day, and people would give her gifts. It was also used by wrestlers. As I said earlier, people believed that it gave them blood and strengthened their bones. Hence, before a big wrestling match, our young men would indulge in rubbing this ufie all over the body until the wrestling match was over.

Thus from all its uses, you will see that ufie was a costly material. It was sold at Ubulu, Eke Imoha, and other markets in Abakaliki Our people often bought it, and sold it to our neighbouring towns.

Our people traded in various types of livestock. The most important of these were horses and cows. Both were used for funeral obsequies. Horses were very rare and costly. The horses were bought from Agbaja and Ubulu. The people of these areas told us that horses were imported from Akpete. and Igala. Our people did not trade regularly in horses, except when somebody died. For that reason whenever an .Ozo man or wealthy man was seriously sick, his people often travelled to Agbaja to buy these beasts beforehand. On the other hand, if a wealthy man, or an elder, or an .Ozo man died, he was not buried until his people bought a horse. In view of this, whenever our people saw horses being driven into the town, they often reminded them that some important personality must have died, and they would start asking questions. But this does not mean that horses were not sold to other towns – our people often sold horses to other Umunri towns, as well as to Nimo, Abagana, Ukpo, Aba, Isu and other neighbouring areas.

Our people do not eat horse meat. Not only is it rare and costly, but mainly because it was associated with the dead. However, trade in horses brought a lot of wealth to our people.

Cows are also very important. They were mostly used for taking Ozo titles and for burial purposes. A man’s wealth was measured by the number of cow skulls he displayed in his obu. Cows were mostly bought at Eke Imoha in Abakaliki. These cows are the local breed, and not the so-called efi awusa (zebu cattle). We sold these cows to neighbouring towns. …

The ritual cleansing of abominations, and the conferring of Ozo titles in other parts of Igboland was the most important aspect of our economy, before the coming of white men. You small children may not understand the importance of Umunri, or the impact our people made on Igboland. As I said earlier, my own village migrated from Agukwu to Enugwu-Ukwu and we became part and parcel of Enugwu-Ukwu. We are direct descendants of Nri, and therefore had the right to cleanse abominations, and confer titles on people. Agukwu, we could carry out the ceremony. …

In fact this cleansing of abominations brought a lot of wealth to us, and brought us into contact with different parts of Igboland. For instance if the abomination was committed in any Umunri town except Agukwu, we went there, and the offenders would bring all the items necessary for the ceremonies, depending upon the gravity of the offence.

For instance, if a boy had sexual intercourse with his sister, it was an abomination. In such a case, the items included a she-goat that had borne offspring, fowls, three yams and so on. The people concerned did not touch these things. They often handed them over to the man who would perform the ikpu alu (ritual cleansing). After the ceremony, the men would take some of the items, and would also be paid in kind. Thus, in one trip to any Umunri town, our people were often laden with livestock, and other essential commodities, and this made them very rich. Their areas of operation on this ipu ije (journey of cleansing) as they called it, included Isu, Mgbakwu, Ebenebe, Nkanu, Agbaja and Abakaliki areas. In fact most of the wealthy men in our town, especially in my village, grew rich as a result of this kind of occupation. …



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© 2025 American Historical Association. All right reserved.

This should explain the prevelance of baby factories and how sale of ones child is not seen as a taboo even in today's world because as early as the early 20th century, people were selling their own children for a cow or for money .

The article is not about slavery but about slave trade.

So, the question is, which of the Igbo states are located in the Caribbean or South America?

Salewa97:
The article is not about slavery but about slave trade.

So, the question is, which of the Igbo states are located in the Caribbean or South America?

Surinam
Dutch Guiana
French Guinea
The United States.

All black Americans are majorly Ibo.

This is a very enlightening perspective on slavery in pre-colonial Nigeria.

trutharena:
This is a very enlightening perspective on slavery in pre-colonial Nigeria.

And it exposes how some people betrayed their own children by selling them into slavery in exchange of a cow.

The content is a reflection of the history of the Igbo people.

Yahoo boys say their activities are as a result of the white man taking black Africans as slaves. Now this article is saying we black people even engaged in slave trade before the white man came to our shores.

Truth is, no white man went inland to capture slaves in West Africa. Our own people sold their fellow brothers, sisters and children to the white slave master in exchange for red caps, elephant tusks, tobacco and gun powder.

Not every Ibo person is a slave descendant. Some were freeborn traders and priests.

Selling one's offspring into slavery in order to take an Ozo title is just pathetic.
What an enlightening historical article.
Some thing that happen nowadays now makes sense. The ability to do anything for money.

DomPerignon:
Surinam
Dutch Guiana
French Guinea
The United States.

All black Americans are majorly Ibo.

You sound dumb

Goosethetruth:
Selling one's offspring into slavery in order to take an Ozo title is just pathetic.
What an enlightening historical article.
Some thing that happen nowadays now makes sense. The ability to do anything for money.

And exchanging one's own child for a cow.

How will one feel.after eating the last morsel of beef of that cow?

There was also reference of poor people selling their own children to feed.

Tufiakpa

ebukal67x:
Not every Ibo person is a slave descendant. Some were freeborn traders and priests.

The priests will be the one to condemn some one to eternal slavery if they can not pay to cleanse themselves of crimes and taboos they committed.

The most successful and respected traders were those who dealt in slaves and partnered with slave raiders or had their own slave raiding party that went slave raiding for slaves. This is the Aro cult.

The so-called freeborns fell into either or both of the category above.

During the height of Aro chukwu slave raiding, the priestly class partnered with the Aro Chukwu cult in their long juju scam Oracle that saw many condemned to slavery .

At the height of the Aro Chukwu, which coincided with the height of ibos being sold into slavery, any one irrespective of class or stature was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

DomPerignon:
Slavery among the Igbo

Published Date
May 1, 2004

Resource Type

Archival Resource, Primary Source

Geographic

Africa
This is a Primary Source
ExpandExpand

This resource was developed in 2004 as part of “Biafra, Nigeria, the West and the World” by David Trask.

The reminiscences in this reading reach back to events at the turn of the twentieth century or earlier. It raises a number of issues about how the traditional economy operated and the role of slavery within that world. It is also important to note which people were made slaves and which people were exempt from that possibility.
Nkwonto Nwuduaku, aged c. 60 in Urunnebo, Enugwu-Ukwu 16 October 1974

From: Elizabeth Isichei, Igbo Worlds An Anthology of Oral Histories and Historical Descriptions (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978) 30-34

Our people, especially my village, Urunnebo, are called Owaofia wapulu ezi, meaning people that travel into distant lands. This is because our people were long distance traders. They also went to different places to cleanse abominations, as well as to confer Ozo titles on people. My village Urunnebo migrated from Agukwu and we carried with us these traditions and customs, and have been exercising them until now. Thus, as I have said, we were long distance traders, and traded in various commodities like slaves, ufie, a red substance people rubbed on their skins, livestock, salt, iron implements, and, later, palm produce.

Our people traded extensively in slaves. It was a dangerous trade, but very profitable. It was dangerous, because you must be strong enough to overpower your victim. Secondly, you must be prepared to risk your life, wresting children from their parents, and so on. In fact, slaves were obtained in various ways – by kidnapping, through wars, through punishment for crimes and breach of taboos, for failure to pay debts. Parents even sold their children, for want of food.

My father told me that one occasion he followed his father on one of these expeditions that took them from Enugwu-Ukwu to Agbaja, and thence to Ubulu, and then to Eke Imoha in Abakaliki. When they came to Agbaja, one man wanted an .Ozo title to be conferred on him. He said that the members of his age grade were deriding him because he had not taken an .Ozo title. This man had to sell two of his children in exchange for the Ozo title. There was another episode when a man had so many children, and he had to ask them to buy one of his children in exchange for one cow.

But whatever the case was, these children were not told that they had been sold. Their parents would ask them to help their family friends convey their goods to market. These children were pampered until they got to Afo. Nkwuleto market, in Ubulu., where slaves were sold openly.

My father, continued that when they arrived with these children in this market, they were asked to look after a few worthless commodities. Then the slave dealers, mostly Aro people, would pretend that they were pricing those goods, when they were really surveying the children. They then came back to my father and grandfather, and a price was fixed—some items of European goods. My father said that after they had received these goods they disappeared, and that was the last he saw of these children.

In fact, the destination of our slave trade depended on the age of the slaves. For instance, kidnappers did not carry their victims far because of the fear that they might be caught, or that their victims might overpower them. In such cases, you know that the slave dealers must have tipped the kidnappers and would be waiting in a nearby place. But those who committed crimes, or breaches of taboos, were carried off by the agbridu people (law enforcement officers) and sold at Ifite Nibo market, near Awka.

Our people had no internal market for slaves. You know we belong to Umunri and it would be contrary to our tradition for slaves to be sold in our market. Yes, at times our people kept slaves for domestic purposes. In such a case the owner of the slave might sell one of the children of the slaves.

In olden days, our people traded in ufie (camwood). It was very important to our people. This ufie was got from a variety of trees, like aboshi, akpalata and even .ukpaka. What happened was that the dealers in this commodity often went about scraping the bark of these trees. Il the inner parts of these trees were scarlet, they were cut down and allowed to dry. These trees, now completely red, were cut into different sizes and brought to market. Ufie was a very costly commodity.

It was used as a sort of pomade, by both young girls and elderly women, before the coming of the Europeans, and even after they established their presence. Our people believed that it not only made the body smooth but also acted as a blood tonic.

It was also used for burial purposes, especially in burying titled men and elders. The body of the deceased was rubbed with ufie before burial, and after the burial, umu ada (his daughters) as well as his wives would continue to wear ufie for iu ili na ato (two native months). It was also rubbed in by nursing mothers, and any woman who wanted to perform the izu afia nwa (when a mother would come to the market to let people know she had a new child). The woman would rub on this ufie and come out on Nkwo day, and people would give her gifts. It was also used by wrestlers. As I said earlier, people believed that it gave them blood and strengthened their bones. Hence, before a big wrestling match, our young men would indulge in rubbing this ufie all over the body until the wrestling match was over.

Thus from all its uses, you will see that ufie was a costly material. It was sold at Ubulu, Eke Imoha, and other markets in Abakaliki Our people often bought it, and sold it to our neighbouring towns.

Our people traded in various types of livestock. The most important of these were horses and cows. Both were used for funeral obsequies. Horses were very rare and costly. The horses were bought from Agbaja and Ubulu. The people of these areas told us that horses were imported from Akpete. and Igala. Our people did not trade regularly in horses, except when somebody died. For that reason whenever an .Ozo man or wealthy man was seriously sick, his people often travelled to Agbaja to buy these beasts beforehand. On the other hand, if a wealthy man, or an elder, or an .Ozo man died, he was not buried until his people bought a horse. In view of this, whenever our people saw horses being driven into the town, they often reminded them that some important personality must have died, and they would start asking questions. But this does not mean that horses were not sold to other towns – our people often sold horses to other Umunri towns, as well as to Nimo, Abagana, Ukpo, Aba, Isu and other neighbouring areas.

Our people do not eat horse meat. Not only is it rare and costly, but mainly because it was associated with the dead. However, trade in horses brought a lot of wealth to our people.

Cows are also very important. They were mostly used for taking Ozo titles and for burial purposes. A man’s wealth was measured by the number of cow skulls he displayed in his obu. Cows were mostly bought at Eke Imoha in Abakaliki. These cows are the local breed, and not the so-called efi awusa (zebu cattle). We sold these cows to neighbouring towns. …

The ritual cleansing of abominations, and the conferring of Ozo titles in other parts of Igboland was the most important aspect of our economy, before the coming of white men. You small children may not understand the importance of Umunri, or the impact our people made on Igboland. As I said earlier, my own village migrated from Agukwu to Enugwu-Ukwu and we became part and parcel of Enugwu-Ukwu. We are direct descendants of Nri, and therefore had the right to cleanse abominations, and confer titles on people. Agukwu, we could carry out the ceremony. …

In fact this cleansing of abominations brought a lot of wealth to us, and brought us into contact with different parts of Igboland. For instance if the abomination was committed in any Umunri town except Agukwu, we went there, and the offenders would bring all the items necessary for the ceremonies, depending upon the gravity of the offence.

For instance, if a boy had sexual intercourse with his sister, it was an abomination. In such a case, the items included a she-goat that had borne offspring, fowls, three yams and so on. The people concerned did not touch these things. They often handed them over to the man who would perform the ikpu alu (ritual cleansing). After the ceremony, the men would take some of the items, and would also be paid in kind. Thus, in one trip to any Umunri town, our people were often laden with livestock, and other essential commodities, and this made them very rich. Their areas of operation on this ipu ije (journey of cleansing) as they called it, included Isu, Mgbakwu, Ebenebe, Nkanu, Agbaja and Abakaliki areas. In fact most of the wealthy men in our town, especially in my village, grew rich as a result of this kind of occupation. …

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© 2025 American Historical Association. All right reserved.

This is not history but anecdotal of oral tales. History is supported by sources.

If his ancestors sold their children as slaves; what's the source?

A British slave trader, named William Snelgrave, was in Dahomey (now called Benin Republic) in 1726 and he mentioned how Africans became slaves.

He wrote the subtitle in the book saying "HOW AFRICANS BECAME SLAVES."

He said it happened in 4 ways...
1. Prisoners of war
2. Kidnapping
3. By owing a debt
4. Selling children

On the 4th reason above, he put a caveat saying that HE HAS NEVER SEEN AN AFRICAN SELL HIS/HER CHILDREN BUT THAT A COLLEAGUE OF HIS ONCE TOLD HIM THAT HE ACQUIRED A SLAVE THAT WAY. That's hearsay!!

Mr. Snelgrave traded slaves for 75 years and never got a slave from an African who sold his/her child!! Yet, that's the part promoted to shame and control black people. He emphasized in the book that the MAIN source of the slaves was PRISONERS OF WAR. And if you trace the years of those wars, it correlates with the arrival of Europeans on our lands to supply gun powder. More guns meant more wars, and more wars meant more prisoners of war would be caught. Today, they'll be called refugees.

The true history of slavery and slave acquisition in Africa could be found at www.africason.com
Go check it out.

Thank God I've checked what the history says.

How can someone wake up in the morning on Christmas Eve just to share this rubbish?

The article clearly alludes to the fact that these acts were criminal in Igboland and punishable under the law yet you extrapolate the actions of criminals to the entire Igbo population.

I have seen some reports on Nairaland of Yoruba men raping their own daughters. Should we now claim that such a thing is prevalent amongst the Yorubas?

But una say igbos no get history prior to the civil war so where did all these come from.

musicwriter:
This is not history but anecdotal of oral tales. History is supported by sources.

If his ancestors sold their children as slaves; what's the source?

A British slave trader, named William Snelgrave, was in Dahomey (now called Benin Republic) in 1726 and he mentioned how Africans became slaves.

He wrote the subtitle in the book saying "HOW AFRICANS BECAME SLAVES."

He said it happened in 4 ways...
1. Prisoners of war
2. Kidnapping
3. By owing a debt
4. Selling children

On the 4th reason above, he put a caveat saying that HE HAS NEVER SEEN AN AFRICAN SELL HIS/HER CHILDREN BUT THAT A COLLEAGUE OF HIS ONCE TOLD HIM THAT HE ACQUIRED A SLAVE THAT WAY. That's hearsay!!

Mr. Snelgrave traded slaves for 75 years and never got a slave from an African who sold his/her child!! Yet, that's the part promoted to shame and control black people. He emphasized in the book that the MAIN source of the slaves was PRISONERS OF WAR. And if you trace the years of those wars, it correlates with the arrival of Europeans on our lands to supply gun powder. More guns meant more wars, and more wars meant more prisoners of war would be caught. Today, they'll be called refugees.

Thank God I've checked what the history says.

Don't mind him, he's an avid Igbo hater. There are so many crimes committed by his people but if you bring them up, he'll just say that they are actions committed by individuals. He won't do that if the criminal is Igbo, though.

musicwriter:
This is not history but anecdotal of oral tales. History is supported by sources.

If his ancestors sold their children as slaves; what's the source?

A British slave trader, named William Snelgrave, was in Dahomey (now called Benin Republic) in 1726 and he mentioned how Africans became slaves.

He wrote the subtitle in the book saying "HOW AFRICANS BECAME SLAVES."

He said it happened in 4 ways...
1. Prisoners of war
2. Kidnapping
3. By owing a debt
4. Selling children

On the 4th reason above, he put a caveat saying that HE HAS NEVER SEEN AN AFRICAN SELL HIS/HER CHILDREN BUT THAT A COLLEAGUE OF HIS ONCE TOLD HIM THAT HE ACQUIRED A SLAVE THAT WAY. That's hearsay!!

Mr. Snelgrave traded slaves for 75 years and never got a slave from an African who sold his/her child!! Yet, that's the part promoted to shame and control black people. He emphasized in the book that the MAIN source of the slaves was PRISONERS OF WAR. And if you trace the years of those wars, it correlates with the arrival of Europeans on our lands to supply gun powder. More guns meant more wars, and more wars meant more prisoners of war would be caught. Today, they'll be called refugees.

The true history of slavery and slave acquisition in Africa could be found at www.africason.com
Go check it out.

Thank God I've checked what the history says.

Spewing trash as usual.

Did your people ever develop any form of written language for.documentary purpose?

The narrator who was 60ys old at the time of the interviewe in 1974 was retelling what his father and grandfather witnessed.

There is another narration published in the New York Post by a proud descendant of a notorious slaver and warrant chief and how her great grand father was heavily involved in the slae trade up on until 1912 with a Rothschild license to supply slaves to Rothschild owned plantations in South America despite slavery being abolished.

The same great grand father was also a notorious and serial human sacrificing ritualist who kept several ritual pots used in collecting human blood and severed heads.

You can continue lying to yourselves.

Ngozi123:
Don't mind him, he's an avid Igbo hater. There are so many crimes committed by his people but if you bring them up, he'll just say that they are actions committed by individuals. He won't do that if the criminal is Igbo, though.

This article was first published by the American History Association as far back as 1974.

Continue lying to.yourselves.

DomPerignon:
This article was first published by the American History Association as far back as 1974.

Continue lying to.yourselves.

And so?

What has that got to do with my comment?

Ngozi123:
And so?

What has that got to do with my comment?

You claimed what I posted from a certified historical online archive source was all lies.

You can search for the article on their website and see it was first published in 2004 .

Your comment claimed what I simply lifted and posted from that site were all.fabrications and that I am a ''ibo hater''.

So anyone who retells the truth on your sordid past is an Ibo hater?

Good.

I am.for truth and if that makes me an Ibo hater so be it. I will wear that badge with great pride.

bigpriik:
But una say igbos no get history prior to the civil war so where did all these come from.

Who said that?

They have their own history but even their own historians will never publish it because it is too sordid.

Ngozi123:
Don't mind him, he's an avid Igbo hater. There are so many crimes committed by his people but if you bring them up, he'll just say that they are actions committed by individuals. He won't do that if the criminal is Igbo, though.

Here below is an article written by a descendant of a notorious slave trader. It details the author's father struggling to come to terms of what his ancestors did and the guilt he and his family carry on their shoulders.

I suggest you read it to the end.


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The Saturday Essay

When the Slave Traders Were African
Those whose ancestors sold slaves to Europeans now struggle to come to terms with a painful legacy
19th-century shackles on display at the Freedom House Museum in Alexandria, Va. Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images
By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Updated Sept. 20, 2019 11:06 am ET
22

This August marked 400 years since the first documented enslaved Africans arrived in the U.S. In 1619, a ship reached the Jamestown settlement in the colony of Virginia, carrying “some 20 and odd Negroes” who were kidnapped from their villages in present-day Angola. The anniversary coincides with a controversial debate in the U.S. about whether the country owes reparations to the descendants of slaves as compensation for centuries of injustice and inequality. It is a moment for posing questions of historic guilt and responsibility.
Legacies of Slavery

The Long History of American Slavery Reparations
An Ancient Practice Transformed by the Arrival of Europeans

But the American side of the story is not the only one. Africans are now also reckoning with their own complicated legacy in the slave trade, and the infamous “Middle Passage” often looks different from across the Atlantic.

Records from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, directed by historian David Eltis at Emory University, show that the majority of captives brought to the U.S. came from Senegal, Gambia, Congo and eastern Nigeria. Europeans oversaw this brutal traffic in human cargo, but they had many local collaborators. “The organization of the slave trade was structured to have the Europeans stay along the coast lines, relying on African middlemen and merchants to bring the slaves to them,” said Toyin Falola, a Nigerian professor of African studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Europeans couldn’t have gone into the interior to get the slaves themselves.”
image
Chukwuma Hope Nwaubani in Umuahia, Nigeria, this month. Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

The anguished debate over slavery in the U.S. is often silent on the role that Africans played. That silence is echoed in many African countries, where there is hardly any national discussion or acknowledgment of the issue. From nursery school through university in Nigeria, I was taught about great African cultures and conquerors of times past but not about African involvement in the slave trade. In an attempt to reclaim some of the dignity that we lost during colonialism, Africans have tended to magnify stories of a glorious past of rich traditions and brave achievement.

But there are other, less discussed chapters of our history. When I was growing up, my father Chukwuma Nwaubani spoke glowingly of my great-grandfather, Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku, a chief among our Igbo ethnic group who sold slaves in the 19th century. “He was respected by everyone around,” he said. “Even the white people respected him.” From the 16th to the 19th centuries, an estimated 1.4 million Igbo people were transported across the Atlantic as slaves.

Some families have chosen to hide similar histories. “We speak of it in whispers,” said Yunus Mohammed Rafiq, a 44-year-old professor of anthropology from Tanzania who now teaches at New York University’s center in Shanghai. In the 19th century, Mr. Rafiq’s great-great-great-grandfather, Mwarukere, from the Segeju ethnic group, raided villages in Tanzania’s hinterland, sold the majority of his captives to the Arab merchants who supplied Europeans and kept the rest as laborers on his own coconut plantations. Although Mr. Rafiq’s relatives speak of Mwarukere with pride, they expunged his name from family documents sometime in the 1960s, shortly after Tanzania gained independence from British colonial rule, when it was especially sensitive to remind Africans of their role in enslaving one another.

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image
Yunus Mohammed Rafiq in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, Aug. 6. Jonathan Torgovnik for The Wall Street Journal

The need to keep his family’s history secret intensified after Mr. Rafiq left home in his 20s to study at Indiana University and then at Yale and Brown for graduate work. “Truthfully, with my African-American colleagues, I never revealed this aspect,” he said. “Because of the crimes, the pain, the humiliation that I saw them suffer in the United States, I thought talking about this legacy of Africans selling themselves is just piling another wound in a body that is already very shot through, fractured, broken down by other things.” He decided instead to highlight the beauty of Tanzanian music, architecture and poetry and, at Indiana, worked with the black students’ union to organize events that would build bonds to Africa. “Knowing this legacy and what we have done, it put so much pressure on me,” he said.

Like Mr. Rafiq, I also felt apprehensive before deciding to write about my own family’s history. I live in Nigeria but have extended family all over the U.S. How would black Americans respond to the descendants of a man who sold some of their ancestors into slavery? And if my own background was tainted with inhumanity, what authority would I have to lend my voice to the human rights issues in Nigeria and around Africa that cause me such grave concern?

Some families feel no qualms about publicizing their own history. “I’m not ashamed of it because I personally wasn’t directly involved,” said 58-year-old Donald Duke, a lawyer who ran for president in Nigeria’s 2019 elections. He is from the port town of Calabar, home to the Efik ethnic group of Nigeria’s Cross River state. In the 18th century, some 1.2 million slaves were sold through Calabar, according to the Tulane University historian Randy J. Sparks. The Efik were mostly stevedores and middlemen. They negotiated prices between the white traders and their African partners from the hinterlands, then collected royalties. “Families like mine benefited from that process,” Mr. Duke told me.
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Donald Duke in Lagos, Nigeria, Aug. 1. Lakin Ogunbanwo for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Duke was elected governor of Cross River state in 1999, and his administration built the Slave History Museum near the point on the coast from which slaves were shipped. One of its exhibitions depicts various currencies of the slave trade, such as flutes, Dane guns and brass bells. “It is not a glorious past, but it is the truth,” Mr. Duke said. “That is why I went out to document it.”

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The Zambian pastor Saidi Francis Chishimba also feels the need to go public with his family’s history. “In Zambia, in a sense, it is a forgotten history,” said the 45-year-old. “But it is a reality to which history still holds us accountable.” Mr. Chishimba’s grandfather, Ali Saidi Muluwe Wansimba, was from a tribe of slave traders of the Bemba kingdom, who moved from Zanzibar to establish slave markets in Zambia. He grew up hearing this history narrated with great pride by his relatives.

In 2011, he decided to see the place of his ancestor’s origin and traveled with his wife to Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. As they toured a memorial in what used to be one of the world’s largest slave markets, the photos of limbs amputated from runaway slaves and the airless chambers that once held dozens of slaves at a time shocked him into silence. “It brought a saddening in my heart that my own family lines were involved in this treatment,” he said. “It was so painful to think about.”

Mr. Chishimba decided that this gruesome history should be openly acknowledged and has since become popular in Zambia for his sermons, radio talks and articles on the impact of the slave trade. He uses them as an opportunity to “demonstrate the grace of God” even in so wicked a practice. He believes, for example, that mixing the races was always in God’s plan and the slave trade was an effective device for dispersing black people from Africa to other parts of the world. “What the devil meant for evil, God used it for good,” he said.
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Saidi Francis Chishamba in Ingombe Ilede, Zambia, Aug. 8. Jonathan Torgovnik for The Wall Street Journal

Some families feel cursed or burdened by their history and wish that they could be rid of it. “What our ancestors did wasn’t right,” said 48-year-old Teddy Nwanunobi, a journalist from southeastern Nigeria. “If they had thought about the consequences, they wouldn’t have done those things.” His great-grandfather was an Igbo slave trader, and Mr. Nwanunobi and his male relatives think that their own failure to produce children, in a patrilineal society, is a result of their family’s role in bringing other people’s lineages to an end. “I didn’t think twice about believing it,” Mr. Nwanunobi told me. He quoted a portion from the Book of Exodus, which refers to God “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children…to the third and fourth generation.”

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Similar Bible passages have become popular in certain religious circles in Nigeria. The pastors encourage their congregations to identify patterns in their afflictions and to investigate their histories for root causes, then to ask God for forgiveness, usually after a period of fasting. In collaboration with his younger brother in England, Mr. Nwanunobi is now making arrangements for priests to visit the family and advise on what steps to take to free them from their past. “If not, the family will continue to go down,” he said.

My own family held a similar intervention in January 2018, organized by my father, who, at 79, is the oldest male and head of the extended family. Members of the Nwaubani family in Nigeria and around the world participated in the three days of prayer and fasting. On the final day, a few dozen who lived nearby gathered in my father’s home, then accompanied him to the local Anglican Church, where a priest invoked God’s mercies on us. In December, my father organized another ceremony. Hundreds of family members who were home for the Christmas holidays joined in the thanksgiving service. This time, we dressed in our Sunday best and danced merrily to the altar to present a special money offering as a token of gratitude to God for granting us a new beginning.

Still, my father does not believe that the descendants of those who took part in the slave trade should now pay for those wrongs. As he points out, buying and selling human beings had been part of many African cultures, as a form of serfdom, long before the first white people landed on our shores. And though many families still retain the respect and influence accrued by their slave-trading ancestors, the direct material gains have petered out over time. “If anyone asks me for reparations,” he said sarcastically, “I will tell them to follow me to my backyard so that I can pluck some money from the tree there and give it to them.”
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Mr. Chishimba takes a similar view. “Slavery was wrong, but do I carry upon my shoulders the sins of my forefathers so that I should go around saying sorry? I don’t think so,” he said. Mr. Duke doesn’t believe that Africans should play much of a part in the American reparations conversation, because the injustices the descendants of slaves suffer stem primarily from their maltreatment and deprivation in the U.S. “The Africans didn’t see anything wrong with slavery,” he said. “Even if the white man wasn’t there, they would still use these people as their domestics. However, because the white man was now involved and fortunes were being made…that was when the criminality came in.”

Mr. Nwanunobi wishes the matter were as straightforward as paying reparations in cash. He says that he would be willing to hand over all his family’s land and houses to anyone that suffered from his grandfather’s slave trading, whether in Nigeria or the U.S. “I am happy to give anything as long as it would bring an end to this suffering,” he said. “I will do whatever it will take to appease anybody, if only I can identify the particular people we offended.”

As for Mr. Rafiq, he agrees that Africans owe something to the descendants of slaves in America—a forthright acknowledgment of their own complicity in the trans-Atlantic trade. “Educated Africans need to rewrite their history, especially postcolonial history, which was a kind of restorative history that tended to marginalize issues like slavery,” he said. “Part of the compensation is telling the story of our part in what is happening to African-Americans today.”

Ms. Nwaubani is a Nigerian writer and journalist. Her debut novel, “I Do Not Come to You by Chance,” won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book. Her latest novel is “Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree.” Reporting for this piece was supported by a Reporting Award grant from NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

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Appeared in the September 21, 2019, print edition.

Thank you for sharing this.

DomPerignon:
Spewing trash as usual.

Did your people ever develop any form of written language for.documentary purpose?

The narrator who was 60ys old at the time of the interviewe in 1974 was retelling what his father and grandfather witnessed.

There is another narration published in the New York Post by a proud descendant of a notorious slaver and warrant chief and how her great grand father was heavily involved in the slae trade up on until 1912 with a Rothschild license to supply slaves to Rothschild owned plantations in South America despite slavery being abolished.

The same great grand father was also a notorious and serial human sacrificing ritualist who kept several ritual pots used in collecting human blood and severed heads.

You can continue lying to yourselves.

White slave traders also documented their journeys. And none of them ever said that he bought a slave from parents selling their children. None. Zero.

By the 1800 that you're alluding to, slave trade has taken a life of it's own, having Africans participate in it. But that's not how it started

musicwriter:
White slave traders also documented their journeys. And none of them ever said that he bought a slave from parents selling their children. None. Zero.

By the 1800 that you're alluding to, slave trade has taken a life of it's own, having Africans participate in it. But that's not how it started

So called white slavers were Jewish and they never ventured beyond the coast other than use small canoes to go into Igbo land to bypass the middle men in the coast.

All slaves purchased in the coastal areas where supplied by ibo slave raiders who raided their own or bought from slave markets .

This is verified facts.

Going inland was a death sentence for the Jewish slavers owing to hostile tribes or being killed by Africa's biggest killer- Malaria.

All slaves supplied to the coastal slave ports in present day Delta, and along the eastern coastline came from the interior IBO land and were supplied by Aro cultists .

All the shout of Dirty December in LAGOS is now echoing to empty streets and roads. This is because those that own the vast majority of businesses and actually make the LAGOS breathe are going for a well deserved rest.

You can keep barking senselessly...I won't buy you a leash. You need enter market, stark naked

IGBOs are legends and are your Masters. You only hate those that are BETTER than you.

God bless IGBOs.

Now cry blood

DomPerignon:
Slavery among the Igbo

Published Date
May 1, 2004

Resource Type

Archival Resource, Primary Source

Geographic

Africa
This is a Primary Source
ExpandExpand

This resource was developed in 2004 as part of “Biafra, Nigeria, the West and the World” by David Trask.

The reminiscences in this reading reach back to events at the turn of the twentieth century or earlier. It raises a number of issues about how the traditional economy operated and the role of slavery within that world. It is also important to note which people were made slaves and which people were exempt from that possibility.
Nkwonto Nwuduaku, aged c. 60 in Urunnebo, Enugwu-Ukwu 16 October 1974

From: Elizabeth Isichei, Igbo Worlds An Anthology of Oral Histories and Historical Descriptions (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978) 30-34

Our people, especially my village, Urunnebo, are called Owaofia wapulu ezi, meaning people that travel into distant lands. This is because our people were long distance traders. They also went to different places to cleanse abominations, as well as to confer Ozo titles on people. My village Urunnebo migrated from Agukwu and we carried with us these traditions and customs, and have been exercising them until now. Thus, as I have said, we were long distance traders, and traded in various commodities like slaves, ufie, a red substance people rubbed on their skins, livestock, salt, iron implements, and, later, palm produce.

Our people traded extensively in slaves. It was a dangerous trade, but very profitable. It was dangerous, because you must be strong enough to overpower your victim. Secondly, you must be prepared to risk your life, wresting children from their parents, and so on. In fact, slaves were obtained in various ways – by kidnapping, through wars, through punishment for crimes and breach of taboos, for failure to pay debts. Parents even sold their children, for want of food.

My father told me that one occasion he followed his father on one of these expeditions that took them from Enugwu-Ukwu to Agbaja, and thence to Ubulu, and then to Eke Imoha in Abakaliki. When they came to Agbaja, one man wanted an .Ozo title to be conferred on him. He said that the members of his age grade were deriding him because he had not taken an .Ozo title. This man had to sell two of his children in exchange for the Ozo title. There was another episode when a man had so many children, and he had to ask them to buy one of his children in exchange for one cow.

But whatever the case was, these children were not told that they had been sold. Their parents would ask them to help their family friends convey their goods to market. These children were pampered until they got to Afo. Nkwuleto market, in Ubulu., where slaves were sold openly.

My father, continued that when they arrived with these children in this market, they were asked to look after a few worthless commodities. Then the slave dealers, mostly Aro people, would pretend that they were pricing those goods, when they were really surveying the children. They then came back to my father and grandfather, and a price was fixed—some items of European goods. My father said that after they had received these goods they disappeared, and that was the last he saw of these children.

In fact, the destination of our slave trade depended on the age of the slaves. For instance, kidnappers did not carry their victims far because of the fear that they might be caught, or that their victims might overpower them. In such cases, you know that the slave dealers must have tipped the kidnappers and would be waiting in a nearby place. But those who committed crimes, or breaches of taboos, were carried off by the agbridu people (law enforcement officers) and sold at Ifite Nibo market, near Awka.

Our people had no internal market for slaves. You know we belong to Umunri and it would be contrary to our tradition for slaves to be sold in our market. Yes, at times our people kept slaves for domestic purposes. In such a case the owner of the slave might sell one of the children of the slaves.

In olden days, our people traded in ufie (camwood). It was very important to our people. This ufie was got from a variety of trees, like aboshi, akpalata and even .ukpaka. What happened was that the dealers in this commodity often went about scraping the bark of these trees. Il the inner parts of these trees were scarlet, they were cut down and allowed to dry. These trees, now completely red, were cut into different sizes and brought to market. Ufie was a very costly commodity.

It was used as a sort of pomade, by both young girls and elderly women, before the coming of the Europeans, and even after they established their presence. Our people believed that it not only made the body smooth but also acted as a blood tonic.

It was also used for burial purposes, especially in burying titled men and elders. The body of the deceased was rubbed with ufie before burial, and after the burial, umu ada (his daughters) as well as his wives would continue to wear ufie for iu ili na ato (two native months). It was also rubbed in by nursing mothers, and any woman who wanted to perform the izu afia nwa (when a mother would come to the market to let people know she had a new child). The woman would rub on this ufie and come out on Nkwo day, and people would give her gifts. It was also used by wrestlers. As I said earlier, people believed that it gave them blood and strengthened their bones. Hence, before a big wrestling match, our young men would indulge in rubbing this ufie all over the body until the wrestling match was over.

Thus from all its uses, you will see that ufie was a costly material. It was sold at Ubulu, Eke Imoha, and other markets in Abakaliki Our people often bought it, and sold it to our neighbouring towns.

Our people traded in various types of livestock. The most important of these were horses and cows. Both were used for funeral obsequies. Horses were very rare and costly. The horses were bought from Agbaja and Ubulu. The people of these areas told us that horses were imported from Akpete. and Igala. Our people did not trade regularly in horses, except when somebody died. For that reason whenever an .Ozo man or wealthy man was seriously sick, his people often travelled to Agbaja to buy these beasts beforehand. On the other hand, if a wealthy man, or an elder, or an .Ozo man died, he was not buried until his people bought a horse. In view of this, whenever our people saw horses being driven into the town, they often reminded them that some important personality must have died, and they would start asking questions. But this does not mean that horses were not sold to other towns – our people often sold horses to other Umunri towns, as well as to Nimo, Abagana, Ukpo, Aba, Isu and other neighbouring areas.

Our people do not eat horse meat. Not only is it rare and costly, but mainly because it was associated with the dead. However, trade in horses brought a lot of wealth to our people.

Cows are also very important. They were mostly used for taking Ozo titles and for burial purposes. A man’s wealth was measured by the number of cow skulls he displayed in his obu. Cows were mostly bought at Eke Imoha in Abakaliki. These cows are the local breed, and not the so-called efi awusa (zebu cattle). We sold these cows to neighbouring towns. …

The ritual cleansing of abominations, and the conferring of Ozo titles in other parts of Igboland was the most important aspect of our economy, before the coming of white men. You small children may not understand the importance of Umunri, or the impact our people made on Igboland. As I said earlier, my own village migrated from Agukwu to Enugwu-Ukwu and we became part and parcel of Enugwu-Ukwu. We are direct descendants of Nri, and therefore had the right to cleanse abominations, and confer titles on people. Agukwu, we could carry out the ceremony. …

In fact this cleansing of abominations brought a lot of wealth to us, and brought us into contact with different parts of Igboland. For instance if the abomination was committed in any Umunri town except Agukwu, we went there, and the offenders would bring all the items necessary for the ceremonies, depending upon the gravity of the offence.

For instance, if a boy had sexual intercourse with his sister, it was an abomination. In such a case, the items included a she-goat that had borne offspring, fowls, three yams and so on. The people concerned did not touch these things. They often handed them over to the man who would perform the ikpu alu (ritual cleansing). After the ceremony, the men would take some of the items, and would also be paid in kind. Thus, in one trip to any Umunri town, our people were often laden with livestock, and other essential commodities, and this made them very rich. Their areas of operation on this ipu ije (journey of cleansing) as they called it, included Isu, Mgbakwu, Ebenebe, Nkanu, Agbaja and Abakaliki areas. In fact most of the wealthy men in our town, especially in my village, grew rich as a result of this kind of occupation. …



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IGBOs are Legends and it's people that are envious, disturbed, subjugated by their success, rant constantly like bleating sheep looking at a brutal butcher.

IGBOs are your masters.

DomPerignon:
So called white slavers were Jewish and they never ventured beyond the coast other than use small canoes to go into Igbo land to bypass the middle men in the coast.

All slaves purchased in the coastal areas where supplied by ibo slave raiders who raided their own or bought from slave markets .

This is verified facts.

Going inland was a death sentence for the Jewish slavers owing to hostile tribes or being killed by Africa's biggest killer- Malaria.

All slaves supplied to the coastal slave ports in present day Delta, and along the eastern coastline came from the interior IBO land and were supplied by Aro cultists .

Op is a rabid lgbo hater. Imagine saying all Africa America slaves are of lgbo descent. Then the true motive of his write up was to blame Jews.