RESISTING BONDAGE: Ashore, on board the ships and on the plantations

Contrary to the general long-held entertained falsification of historical events, African people from the West Coast of the continent and everywhere the penetration of the colonisers was visible and enduring, used every available methods to resist the Europeans invaders, oppressors and the kidnapers of men like any other nations and tribes on the face of the earth would have done for the preservation of their independence.

 

Individuals from the Mandé, Mina, Fon, Akan, Yoruba, Igbo, Maka…tribes and their descendants fought with determination, skilfully and strategically on their native land, on the slave ships and everywhere they set foot in the New World, right from the start. Every act of rebellion proved their love of freedom. Passive, active, individual or collective rebellions. Those who could wrote fustigatory letters to newspapers and spoke out before judges, crowds and congregations denouncing the oppression and their oppressors whilst demanding their freedom.

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The uncompromising book of free black and southerner David Walker’s “Appeal to the Coloured citizens of the World”, a series of four articles published in Boston, USA, in September 1829 is a case in point though not the only one throughout the diaspora. It's a treatise those of like-minded spirit about black liberation would have come across and debated upon. It is their struggles that helped reshape the intrinsic divine nature of humanity. After Walker's death in 1830, his wife Maria Stewart carried on his legacy, writing articles, publishing anti-slavery tracts along with public speaking.

 

Anonymous and known by name, they all have gathered to their fathers and today, with admiration we ponder over their courage, great accomplishments as well as sacrifices. We honour them.

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Wherever and whenever their names and exploits are mentioned, wherever a monument is erected in their memory, they live on in the written and unwritten pages of history. Those who resisted slavery had not ceased to be Africans. For this reason, Africa’s narratives should be inclusive of their stories.

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The plantations

British colonies