There really is something a bit grim about the slave traders who's reaction to being a slave for a few years was just 'well that was unfortunate, anyway, who are we selling next?'
This article, and the last, were originally meant to be included in the liberia article as background but I had a lot to say so here we go. I do think its a bit scattershot as a result without clear conclusions but the alternative is a 15,000 word article.
You can normally work out which articles I'm researching by my posts in the pub and I had a nice conversation with @Thande about the Kongo deal when I first encountered it. One of the few things I learned while writing this series which I genuinely had no clue about it happening before hand and something I found fascinating.
The "Europeans are cannibals" line of thought I recently encountered while reading A Fistful of Shells and once you see it, you just can't unpicture it, it makes so much sense. It is darkly funny that both Europeans and Africans came to see the others as eaters of people.
Fantastic stuff as always Gary. Looking forward to the next one - will be interesting to compare Liberia's history with these nominally similar stories.
Going by that last paragraph, I suppose Ethiopia is the closest we came to an African country remaining independent throughout the colonial period, only disqualified by a few years under Mussolini?
Being the guy who gets sent off with people to identify your friend who the same people (or close enough from your perspective any rate) illicitly sold into slavery and lied about it must be a pretty terrifying assignment. One wonders how it was decided who, exactly, would go.