There Was A Fate
Much Worse Than Slavery
for Africans That Came to America on “Slave Ships”

 

The book, The Black and White of Racism, points out that “a fate worse than slavery” was likely had the Africans not been sold in their homeland during the slave trade years. Millions of Africans died at the hands of their fellow African captors before they made it to the African coast to be sold, by their African captors, to the slave traders.

 

For example, following are some facts from the book that support the point:

 

The history of Slavery in early America through the Civil War has been presented to the American people of today in a deceptive manner. White Slaves, Black Slave Owners and the extent of African participation in the slave trade has been excluded from most text books, as well as, historical museums and presentations.

 

Facts, such as the historical record that African tribes stalked other tribes to capture and kidnap more than 20 million other Africans in their own homeland to sell as slaves, is little known. "Historians estimate that ten million of these abducted Africans never made it to the slave ships. Most died on the march to the sea—still chained, yoked, and shackled by their African captors.

 

The survivors were either purchased by European slave dealers or instantly beheaded by the African traders in site of the [slave ship] captains, if they could not be sold."  Under these conditions, the Africans that finally made it to the slave ships lived, and today their descendants, most often, do not seem to feel that they would be better off back in Africa. Few today choose to return.

 

These quotes are from Sheldon Stern who "taught African American History at the college level for a decade before becoming historian at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum (1977-1999) –where he designed the museums first civil rights exhibit. Mr. Stern is an American with African heritage."

The book quotes from the article, “It's Time to Face the Whole Truth about the Atlantic Slave Trade” at
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/41431