The Door of No Return
The history of the international slave trade is a significant part of the American tourist experience in West Africa. For many of us, it is a chance to make a visceral connection with descendants of Black people who were such an important part of our nation’s development and legacy.
In December 2023, my wife and I spent a somber Christmas Day on Goree Island just off the coast of Dakar in Senegal. We stood silent in the prison cellar of a colonial slave trader’s home and gazed out of what locals call “the door of no return,” where untold thousands of enslaved Africans touched the soil of their homeland for the last time. These captives had already endured inhuman internment for weeks or months, waiting for ships to arrive. Those who survived a forced march along the coast were cramped into outdoor “barracoons” or dank, subterranean dungeons.
For nearly four hundred years, about two million enslaved people perished on the Middle Passage to plantations in the New World, where between ten and fifteen million enslaved Africans and their descendants would be forcibly separated from their families, whipped and raped by their enslavers, and consigned to work camps where they were forced to work six days a week, from dawn to dusk without compensation, and bred like farm animals.[1]
But the transatlantic trade was only part of the enormous impact that slavery had on the African continent, as Islamic traders exported similar numbers of people as far as India, North Africa, and the Middle East. Another two million people died because of the trans African trade.[2] This was human trafficking writ large.
Enslaved labor became an integral part of the U.S. economy with a value in 1860 triple the combined wealth of all northern manufacturing and railroads.[3] This was not merely a sectional issue, but a national sin. All Americans were complicit in the production, consumption, and profit of goods derived in whole or part from this insidious enterprise.
Although the transatlantic trade in enslaved human beings was outlawed by Great Britain in 1809, the U.S. in 1820, and Brazil in 1850, traders flaunted the statutes up to 1860, surreptitiously sponsored by a New York-based, transnational criminal enterprise.[4]
Yet even today, many seem unwilling to acknowledge the great contradictions between our professed ideals of liberty and equality for all and the reality of a national wealth largely built through stolen, intergenerational forced labor. Some anti-woke politicians fear that teaching an honest account of enslavement in America will somehow embarrass white children and teach them to hate their country; rather than present them with hard truths and facts and teach them to think critically for themselves.
Florida’s 2023 Standard in Social Studies is a case in point. Presumably designed, in part, to address thorny issues of slavery, it nevertheless contains phrasing that diminishes its evils, such as, “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied to their personal benefit.” The mere suggestion that an enslaved person could somehow benefit from chattel bondage is as ludicrous as the notion that enslaved women consented to sex with their enslaver, when the power dynamics of such liaisons made consent impossible.
Words are important. The Florida Board of Education’s use of the appellation “slave” more than ninety times to describe enslaved people is another indicator of subtle, perhaps unconscious, bias. The term “slave” denies these victims their basic humanity.[5] Educators have also been guilty of denying enslaved people agency as helpless others who needed a white savior like Father Abraham Lincoln to grant them freedom. This storyline, long taught in our schools, discounts the long history of resistance among enslaved people that began before they boarded as human cargo in Africa.
My wife and I used a small boat to visit Lake Village Ganvie, a settlement of houses built on stilts in Lake Nokoue in present-day Benin. Known by tourists as “the Venice of Africa,” this settlement has an unusual history. The word “ganvie” means “we survived” in the Tofinu tribal language. It was first settled in the sixteenth century by coastal residents fleeing Portuguese enslavers. Many current Ganvie residents are aware of their history and proud of their village as a symbol of resistance.
An estimated one in ten slave ship voyages experienced some sort of revolt, from armed takeovers to hunger strikes.[6] Freedom seekers rose up in Haiti in 1791, finally gaining their independence from France in 1804. Although Denmark Versey’s, Nat Turner’s, and John Brown’s revolts failed in 1822, 1831, and 1859 respectively, countless enslaved people resisted by rendering inefficient labor, sabotaging manufacturing of Confederate war materiel, or escaping bondage altogether. When the U.S. Army finally authorized the use of Black troops in the Civil War, formerly enslaved people were further empowered to affect their own liberation.
Historians who attempt to present a balanced account of our history, highlighting both America’s accomplishments and its tragic failures, are under attack in these days of heightened political division. The ignorance or blatant denial of primary source historical evidence by extremists with a following on social media has pushed many historians to become activists rather than allow such perversions of the historical method to go unchallenged. Some have been accused of acting with a partisan political agenda and have suffered loss of reputation or employment as the result of their principled efforts to uphold rigorous standards of academic research.
But a comprehensive understanding of the horrors and injustice of slavery and its relevance to the persistent and vexing problems of racism in our country lies well beyond musty documents in archives or first-hand accounts of enslaved people, their enslavers, and those businessmen and politicians who either enabled or opposed our “peculiar institution.” The greatest challenge is empathy, an emotion that seems to be in short supply today.
Our trip to West Africa exposed us to a wonderful culture of proud and dignified people who place family and tribe at the center of their lives. All people have the same basic aspirations: health, happiness, and physical comfort. Should we experience guilt for the millions of fellow humans that our ancestors killed or kidnapped from their ancestral lands and forced into transgenerational involuntary servitude? You bet we should. It was wrong then and is wrong now, just as murder and child abuse have always existed as morally abhorrent. Does this abominable legacy endure to some extent, reflected in the racial inequalities and inequities of modern American society? By most statistical measures, it certainly does.
If we do not come to terms with sordid elements of our own history, we will never develop the understanding and empathy to solve our society’s greatest problems. Let’s stop using history as a partisan political cudgel, reckon honestly with our past, and move forward as a community of citizens.
Sources and Notes:
[1] These numbers are broadly accepted estimates. For a detailed chronological and temporal breakdown from a compilation of primary sources, see “Slave Voyages,” https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates.
[2] Seymour Drescher, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Holocaust: A Comparative Analysis” in Alan S. Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide (New York: Routledge, 2009), 132.
[3] National Park Service, “The Civil War: 150 Years” (website), “The Eve of War” https://www.nps.gov/features/waso/cw150th/reflections/eve-of-war/page3.html
[4] John Harris, The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2020).
[5] Florida Department of Education, Florida’s State Academic Standards – Social Studies, 2023, accessed at https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf.
[6] David Eltis, “A Brief Overview of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade,” in “Slave Voyages,” https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/essays#interpretation/overview-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/african-agency-and-resistance/2/en/.
This comes across too much as a Manifesto for DEI and Victimhood. Slavery came to America 150 years before the founding of the United States and the values upon which the USA was founded. Slavery was in the world for thousands of years before the creation of the USA. Slaves were mistreated so badly in about all other countries that it came to an end, i.e., died out. The USA was the only country that had to fight a war to end it. Academia is about the last place to look for a Christian world view which was necessarily to end slavery. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, did not apply to the states until the 14th Amendment. Everyone is sinful. Nothing has changed since Adam and Eve. People still want to come to America for the Hope that it provides.
Your comment is the platonic ideal of MAGA dogma about history
Christian world view? How many “christians” owned slave? How many “christians” went to church on Sunday morning and then raped their slaves on Sunday evening? How many “Christians” used the Bible to promote slavery? How many “christians” lived completely contrary to the teachings of Jesus to care for the orphaned, widows, foreigners, sick and to love others as they love themselves?
So if Christianity does not say that slavery is wrong, what does and why did the North oppose it?
Curtis, your statement that the US is the only country that fought a war to end slavery is incorrect. Let us not forget that Haiti fought a war against France, which was both a war for independence and the largest successful resistance by enslaved people to end this system.
Sounds like two countries fighting if I understand your comment. That is not one country and thus not a Civil War.
I think the word is “flouted”, not “flaunted” anti slavery restrictions.
Correct good catch,Matt.
As an educated white person who is in my 70’s, I do not agree with all of us sharing the guilt for slavery that started on this continent hundreds of years ago. I think slavery is a sin against God and man. If you listen to your conscience, which we all possess, it informs you of this truth. Man is lazy and gets into ruts easily. Was it easier to keep on with this institution in antebellum South, even though Christianity and the Constitution posited otherwise? Of course it was! Don’t tell me that those plantation owners didn’t see the humanity in their slaves! They just preferred to “keep on, keeping on” because it benefited them economically. So why listen to your buried conscience? The blame for this travesty of slavery and its associated horrors should be on THEM! They knew better but wouldn’t acknowledge it. At that time, my Irish and German ancestors weren’t even in this country yet. I will readily assume guilt for something I did but not for something someone else did more than a hundred years ago. And reparations? Ask the Irish about slavery.
Reading honest histories of the colonial period in this country (Edmund Morgan’s “American Slavery, American Freedom” comes to mind) left me with a feeling of disgust for what early colonizers did to Blacks, Indians, indentured servants, and anyone else they could use to avoid work and gain power. I certainly feel no pride in the founding or early development of the colonies that became the United States. But neither do I feel guilt. It is senseless and unhealthy to feel guilty about something you had no part in. Neither am I complicit either in the system of slavery or the inherent racism still alive in this country. Guilt and complicity require making choices. Demanding guilt rather than encouraging unity for positive change increases distrust and turns away possible allies.
I imagine most people have plenty to feel guilty about from their own lives. I know I do! We must gather the mental fortitude to know our history and ourselves, since American slavery required a nasty racial ideology that had effects far beyond antebellum slave states and 1865.
MAGA is a joke!!!
Our history is shameful from our beginning and continues even now with denying children medical care. One of the most misused words and belief is Christian.
They need to read the New Testament and not make a mockery of true Christianity.
Thank You for a fantastic piece will pass it on.
AJB
Attention all haters, I’m not on the side of fixing problems that existed int the US 150 – 200 years ago, the problem was fixed by blood, as abolitionist John Brown foresaw. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Haters – feel free to take your best shots at me, here goes.
“…as Islamic traders exported similar numbers of people as far as India, North Africa, and the Middle East…”
So my first comment is that the slave trade was initiated by Africans, they were not only Islamic. Was Benin an Islamic country in the 16th Century, I don’t know. The west coast of Africa had a huge port for slavery, and I think it had a Christian Cathedral, long since fallen victim to the weather, but it wasn’t the Europeans that went deep into Africa tracking down people to Shanghai.
The text states that slaves were sent to India, North Africa (Egypt, I would guess being a destination) and the Middle East…
So why is this merely a “national sin” and not a worldwide sin? (Punch me in the face, haters.)
“Enslaved labor…[had] a value in 1860 triple the combined wealth of all northern manufacturing and railroads.”
I kind of see this as, not a lie, nor a damnable lie, but a statistic. Railroads were still growing at the time of the Civil War, enslaved labor had been in place for 200 years, maybe . During the war, unfinished railroad cuts provided cover for troops at numerous battles. That proves it was still in growth mode. The trans-United States railroad wasn’t completed until 1869. So saying “all the railroads,” yes, there were thousands of miles of track, but specifying the railroads just strikes me as making it sound bigger than it was.
“transatlantic trade in enslaved human beings was outlawed by Great Britain in 1809, the U.S. in 1820, and Brazil in 1850”
When was selling human beings outlawed in Africa, where slavery went on for thousands of years? Btw, you failed to mention that slavery was outlawed by France in the 1300’s but France allowed slavery in it’s colonies. So there, I said it for you.
Human trafficking and slavery goes on today. Instead of making a stand for getting remuneration for something that happened hundreds of years ago, and without which you wouldn’t be here today, why not put your efforts into fixing today’s problems instead of fixing yesterday’s problems, wheel reinventor. Haters, I yield the floor to you.
It was a worldwide problem but I don’t see why that prevents Americans from acknowledging what happened? I don’t think the author is excusing other countries but he’s focusing on America and our part in it. And yes we should be focusing on modern day slavery and what we can do to fix it. If this is important to you then what are you doing? Are you buying clothes/textiles that provide a living wage to the workers? Are you or anyone in your family wearing Nike? A company that makes billions in profits yet uses Chinese factories to make their products who in turn are using slave labor by forcing the Uyghurs to work? What about our cell phones and the materials that are needed to make it being mined by children in Africa? The coffee you drink? Most destroy natural forests to make it and pay their workers next to nothing in plantation like settings. The chocolate you eat? Slave labor provided that for you.
“If we do not come to terms with sordid elements of our own history, ” …. But, first, we have to agree on what that history encompasses. Many slave-holders sincerely believed they were doing their Christian duty (however you wish to characterize it) duty by retaining their enslaved persons in slavery. Looking back to the 1850’s, it was not simply a choice of evil slave-owners or freedom. There were many slave-owners who sincerely believed slavery was the best choice for African-Americans – for some period of time. These slave-owners believed African-Americans were not capable of taking care of themselves, earning a living, and the like. This was a time, after all, when educated persons believed you could determine the intelligence of a man by the circumference of his head. You can disagree with their conclusions, but IMO, you cannot genuinely disagree with their sincerity. “Sordid” can mean many things. But, whatever the meaning, if we must to terms with the “sordid” past, we must also come to terms with the very mis-guided, if somewhat well-intentioned and “un-sordid” past as well.
Tom
Sincere slave owners? I would love to see examples of sincere slaves owners who didn’t do what all the other insincere slave owners did-tear families apart, abuse, rape, long hours working, punishment etc. how did these sincere slave owners differ from the others? They still perpetuated a system that was cruel and completely dehumanizing
How about the Shelby family in Uncle Tom’s Cabin … not sure sincere is the right term for them, perhaps redemptive is better word … but, slaveholders nonetheless.
I love how an article about the past somehow became an anti-MAGA manifesto. Both he and the other party have nothing to do with any of this. Shut up and learn.
This comment was intended for the commenters, not the article. The article was great.
It is pure myth that the value of slaves in America were worth anywhere near – let alone double or triple – the combined value of Northern manufacturing and railroads. This myth is born of taking the highest price a young, healthy male slave could fetch, $1,000 – and multiplying it by the estimated numbers of slaves in America, 4 million. The real figure is at best one-fifth of this, or even lower. Only a very few slaves could be valued at $1,000, and this value lasted only a short time, due to the rigors of their treatment. So, while a few young, strong, healthy males could be valued at $1,000, most, even in this category, sold for around $600. Similarly, a young, strong, healthy female, at best, did not fetch $1,000, but $600 – and more often around $400. Most, however, were not young, strong and healthy. The hard life they led, irregular nutrition, and poor medical care meant that even relatively strong, healthy, skilled slaves, once they passed their mid-twenties, were valued at $300-$400 for male, $200-$300 for females – and if the women had had multiple childbirths, their value fell to $100. Then there was the large percentage of slaves that were elderly and could barely work, the chronically ill; those maimed by accident, illness or maltreatment; or the young. Childhood mortality in the 19th and 18th centuries was high, whether it was slave children or whites – rich or poor, so children did not fetch a significant price because there was no telling if they would survive to their late teens or twenties – and if then, as strong and healthy slaves. When sold with one or both parents they could fetch a nominal sum only, $25-$50. Elderly slaves who could do some work might fetch the same price, or none at all – they were viewed as practically worthless. Thus, the average price for slaves across this spectrum of 4 million people was not $1,000, but $200. So, the value of slaves in America was not $4 billion, but $800 million.
But it was less than this, for what is not taken into consideration is what slaves cost their owners. (All economic studies of slavery, by the way, agree that slavery is an extremely poor economic model. It simply does not pay to emprison humans and force them to work.) While obviously they were not kept in luxury, slaves had to have housing, clothing and food. Doctors and medicine must also be included; while maltreated, slaves were also an investment, so it would be foolish for owners to not summon medical care when they were ill or injured. And, one must remember that children, the elderly, the ill and the infirm, while producing little work, still had to be housed, fed, clothed and cared for. What’s more, slaves held their top value a relatively short time; like their mechanical counterparts, with use they decline in value – it’s called “depreciation.” So all told, figuring conservatively, one can subtract a quarter of that $800 million in value. There is no way the 4 million slaves in America as of 1860 were worth more than $600 million, and the true figure was probably more like $400 million.
The proof of this is everywhere. Examine the financial records of slaveowners and you repeatedly find the same story predominant, one that was true even of George Washington: Slave owners were land rich, perhaps even slave rich, but cash poor. This is because slavery is a bad economic model, slaves were worth nowhere near what the mythologists of the 21st century are claiming, and because of one other thing: the people who truly profited from slavery were the Northern manufacturers and bankers. The South was forced to sell its cotton North at ruinous low prices – and their profits were taxed and subjected to tariffs. It was then turned into valuable manufactured goods, which with then sold back to the South at ruinous high prices – which once again were subjected to taxes and tariffs. As Mary Chestnut wrote, “We let [the North] have all of our hard earnings. We bore the bane of slavery. They got the money. Cotton pays everybody who handles it, sells it, manufactures it, etc. – rarely pays the men who make it.”
You state that “All Americans were complicit in the production, consumption, and profit of goods derived in whole or part from this insidious enterprise.” That is some broad brush you are painting with. I had two great-great grandfathers who fought in Pennsylvania infantry regiments in the Civil War. Were they less complicit for risking life and limb to restore the Union and end slavery. One of them was wounded twice; would he rate special absolution from our “national sin”? The only thing they were complicit in was answering President Lincoln’s call for citizen soldiers to fight a nation founded on the principle that all men are not created equal.
Finally, I note that good people of the great state of Vermont abolished slavery in their state constitution in 1777. The rest of New England (1783-84) , New York (1799), Pennsylvania (1780), and New Jersey (1804) followed suit during early republic. I add this in the interest of providing the historical balance you mention above. Finally, I find it far more constructive to acknowledge where our great nation has fallen short in the ideals of founders and commit ourselves making our country better everyday. If collective guilt is your gig, feel free to shoulder my share. PS — Educators neither deny or grant agency to enslaved people, or anyone else for that matter.