Page 16 - Testify 15 Oct 2020

16 15 - 30 October 2020
The triangular slave trade By Sheila Mordi

Slavery came to Europe, the Caribbean freedom for herself and her children.
and the Americas as part of the Trian-
gular Trade. Quamino had a better outcome than
many other African-born slaves.
Ships from Europe carried manufac-
tured goods such as cloth, guns, and While awaiting slave ships in Angola,
metal pans to Africa, selling or exchang- African captives were forced by their
ing these items for captives picked up Portuguese handlers to convert to
at ports along the continent’s western Catholicism. Baptisms, conducted in big
coast. These people were delivered into groups stripped the captives of their Af-
bondage in the Caribbean and Ameri- rican identity. Those who were detained
cas. Many were forced int backbreaking in Angola were given Christian names.
work growing sugar, rice, cotton, and to- Those herded onto ships often were
bacco - raw materials that were shipped renamed if and when they reached a
back to Europe on the third leg of the distant shore.
triangle.
Religious conversion helped the Afri-
Though most slaves from the African cans “embrace the gospel,” said the
continent were taken from Ghana, Sen- Rev. Paulino Koteka, a parish priest in
egal, and Nigeria, more than 5 million the coastal city of Benguela. But he ac-
who landed in the Western Hemisphere knowledged, “it destroyed their identity
came from Angola. Colonised by the The Slave Trade route on the Western Coat of Badagry, Lagos State. Nigeria and their culture. Many of them suffered
Portuguese, who dominated the slave because of this evangelisation.”
trade for centuries, Angola account- The captives were taken to port com- 1753 in West Africa, Charity “Duchess”
ed for roughly a quarter of the nearly munities, locked in holding areas or Quamino became known as “the pastry In 1985, Pope John Paul II asked Afri-
400,000 Africans sent to the North barracoons, until they were sold and queen of Rhode Island,” using the cans to forgive white Christians for their
American mainland. shipped off. proceeds from her cake sales to buy involvement in the slave trade.

While some tribal chiefs sold captives Roles of religion
to European slavers, other leaders tried
to protect their people. One of such was Faith groups were not without
Njinga Mbande, queen of the Ndongo sin. The Episcopal Church,
and Mataba kingdoms in the 17th cen- particularly in Rhode Island,
tury. A warrior and diplomat, she fended USA, during the late 1600s and
off Portuguese and Dutch slavers early 1700s, “profited directly…
throughout her 40-year reign. because donations from our
members were proceeds of
“She was the greatest protector of An- the slave trade,” said Nicholas
golan sovereignty, and it was 40 years Knisely, Bishop of the Episco-
of fighting,” historian Isilda Hurst said pal Diocese of Rhode Island.
from a boat cruising the Kwanza River.
Even the clergy enslaved
She said, Njinga would hide in the people.
river’s floating islands of tall grass, so
her adversaries “could never tell where “We had slaves who were
she was. She always resisted, and she owned by the missionary or-
always won.” ganisations that were creating
the Anglican churches here
But the Portuguese slavers ultimately in the United States,” Knisely
prevailed. added. “We have records of
slaves who were branded with
The Kwanza, which empties into the the letters SPG - Society for
Atlantic just south of the capital city of the Propagation of the Gospel.”
Luanda, was an important trade route.
People who lived near its banks got “Unitarian minister William
swept up in the slave trade. Ellery Channing, had an en-
slaved cook for his household
“It was by the river where most of the in Newport and praised her
slaves were captured,” with Africans industriousness,” said Stokes,
serving as middlemen in the sordid the Newport historian. Born in
deals,” Hurst said.