The story of the transatlantic slave trade is often told in ways that feel deceptively simple—reduced to slogans, moral shortcuts, and phrases like “they sold us.” But history rarely conforms to such neat conclusions. In this fourth installment, we confront one of the most persistent and misleading assumptions at the heart of that narrative: the idea of a unified African identity at the time of enslavement that sold its own.
This part of the series pushes beyond surface-level explanations to examine how identity itself was reshaped—first fragmented, then exploited—through events like the Berlin Conference and the broader machinery of imperial expansion.
It situates slavery within a longer continuum that includes colonial domination and the enduring realities of neocolonial influence. At the same time, it challenges another dangerous narrowing: the tendency to begin Africa’s story with slavery itself.
By revisiting Africa’s precolonial civilizations—from the scholarly legacy of University of al-Qarawiyyin to the intellectual brilliance of Timbuktu—this chapter reclaims a deeper, fuller narrative. What emerges is not a story of passive victims or simplified blame, but a complex history shaped by power, resistance, and a global system whose consequences are still unfolding today.
Of “they don’t like us; they sold us into slavery!”
A critical dimension often overlooked in simplified narratives of the transatlantic slave trade is the question of identity. At the time of enslavement, there was no unified “African” identity in the modern political sense, and certainly no “African-American” or “Afro-Caribbean” identity on the continent or elsewhere. Those who were captured and transported across the Atlantic came from a vast array of ethnic groups, kingdoms, and cultural systems—Akan, Ewe, Ga-Adangme, Yoruba, Kongo, Mandé, and many others—each with distinct languages, traditions, and political structures. To retroactively describe this process as “Africans selling Africans” imposes a modern, homogenized identity onto a historically diverse landscape. As historian John Thornton explains, precolonial African societies “identified primarily with local polities and kinship groups rather than a continental identity,” making such generalizations historically misleading.
This diversity was later exploited and deepened by European imperial powers, particularly during the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. Convened in Germany under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, the conference formalized the partition of Africa among European powers without the participation or consent of African societies.
Borders were drawn arbitrarily, often cutting across ethnic, linguistic, and cultural lines. The United Nations has described colonialism as a system that “denied fundamental human rights and imposed artificial boundaries that continue to affect African development.” This partition facilitated resource extraction.
The relationship between slavery and colonialism is therefore not incidental but deeply connected. Many scholars argue that colonialism represented a transformation—rather than an end—of earlier systems of exploitation. As Kwame Nkrumah asserted, “colonialism and imperialism are the means by which the developed nations maintain their economic hold over the developing world.” In this sense, colonial rule can be understood as a form of structural domination that, while distinct from chattel slavery, replicated many of its core features: forced labor, economic extraction, political subjugation, and cultural suppression. Historian Walter Rodney similarly argued that colonialism “intensified Africa’s exploitation” and locked the continent into a dependent position within the global economy.
The question of whether European powers directly raided African populations is also clarified when viewed in this broader context of power and capacity. By the late nineteenth century, as earlier explained in Part II of this series, European states had demonstrated their ability to conquer and control vast territories across Africa through military force. The rapid colonization that followed the Berlin Conference—often referred to as the “Scramble for Africa”—was made possible by technological advantages such as firearms, steamships, and medical advances like quinine. As historian Basil Davidson noted, European conquest was achieved through “overwhelming military superiority and political manipulation,” not through passive reliance on African intermediaries.
Given this demonstrated capacity for direct intervention, I reiterate that the argument that Europeans could not have conducted raids or coercive operations during the slave trade becomes increasingly untenable. While the mechanisms of the slave trade varied over time and place, the broader pattern of European expansion—marked by violence, and coercion—suggests that direct involvement in capture and displacement was entirely within their means. The same imperial logic that enabled the colonization of Africa and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples in the Americas underpinned earlier phases of the slave trade. Hence, neither did Africans sell Africans nor Ashantis sold Ga-Dangmes, etc. All those tribes in Africa suffered raids, violence, and coercion at the hands of European captors; albeit sometimes with the connivance of certain miscreant African elites.
The exploitation and enslavement continues
The legacy of this domination did not end with formal independence in the mid-twentieth century. Many scholars point to the persistence of external influence in African political and economic affairs, often described as neocolonialism. Kwame Nkrumah defined neocolonialism as a system in which “the state which is subject to it is, in theory, independent… but in reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.” This framework helps explain ongoing patterns of resource extraction, debt dependency, and political intervention.
The fates of leaders such as Patrice Lumumba further illustrate these dynamics. Lumumba, who sought to assert genuine sovereignty over the Congo’s resources, was overthrown, assassinated, with his corpse chopped and placed in acid under circumstances widely linked to foreign interests. Such episodes reinforce the argument that external powers have continued to shape African trajectories in ways that prioritize strategic and economic interests over local autonomy.
In this broader historical continuum—from slavery to colonialism to neocolonialism—the simplification that “Africans sold their own” obscures more than it reveals. It ignores the absence of a unified African identity at the time, the imposition of artificial borders and political structures by European powers, and the enduring asymmetries of power that have defined global relations. As the UNESCO has emphasized, understanding the transatlantic slave trade requires recognizing it as part of “a global system of exploitation whose consequences are still felt today.”
A more accurate and just interpretation must therefore situate African experiences within this wider framework—one that acknowledges internal complexities without losing sight of the external forces that shaped, constrained, and often dominated them.
Does the African and African Diaspora story begin with slavery?
A central problem in contemporary debates about slavery and reparations is the narrowing of African and African Diaspora history to the transatlantic slave trade itself—as if the continent’s story begins with enslavement and dispersal. This intellectual framing, many scholars argue, is not accidental but a legacy of colonial historiography that minimized Africa’s precolonial achievements while magnifying its periods of vulnerability. To move beyond this distortion, it is essential to recognize that African civilizations long predate slavery and continued to evolve long after it. As the UNESCO affirms, Africa possesses “a rich heritage of cultural, intellectual, and political traditions that contributed significantly to world civilization,” challenging any notion that its historical identity is rooted solely in enslavement.
Before the rise of the transatlantic slave trade, Africa was home to complex states, empires, and systems of knowledge. Moreover, Africa was home to some of the world’s earliest and most enduring centers of higher learning. The University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 CE, is widely recognized by UNESCO and the Guinness World Records as the oldest existing and continually operating university in the world! This institution predates all of Europe’s most famous universities and served as a major center for scholarship in theology, law, astronomy, and linguistics. Its existence challenges the narrative that higher education was introduced to Africa through European influence.
Likewise, the city of Timbuktu in present-day Mali was a renowned intellectual hub between the 14th and 16th centuries. Institutions such as the Sankore University attracted scholars and students from across Africa and the Islamic world. Historical records indicate that Timbuktu housed vast libraries containing manuscripts on subjects ranging from mathematics and astronomy to law and philosophy. As noted by UNESCO, Timbuktu became “a center of intellectual and spiritual capital” where thousands of students studied under distinguished scholars. This vibrant academic culture again demonstrates that Africa had established traditions of advanced learning long before colonial rule.
Taken together, these historical realities challenge the simplistic narrative that Africa lacked civilization, education, or intellectual achievement prior to European contact. From early writing systems and ancient states to indigenous education systems and world-renowned universities, Africa has long been a source of knowledge, innovation, and human development. Ignoring these contributions not only distorts history but also perpetuates a worldview that undervalues Africa’s role in shaping global civilization.
The worst and most enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism isn’t just economic or political—but psychological. The next part confronts the idea of “mental colonization and slavery,” where history itself becomes a tool of control, shaping how people understand their identity, worth, and past. It explores how reducing Africa’s story to slavery alone can “rob people of dignity” and confine a civilization to a single narrative.
But this isn’t just about critique—it’s about reclamation. From precolonial knowledge systems to early Christianity in Africa and the intellectual legacy, this installment challenges Eurocentric histories that still echo in museums and classrooms today. The question it raises is unsettling but necessary: if history has been told through the lens of power, what does it take to truly free the mind—and who gets to tell the story next?
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The author is a dynamic entrepreneur and the Founder and Group CEO of Groupe Soleil Vision, made up of Soleil Consults (US), LLC, NubianBiz.com and Soleil Publications. He has an extensive background In Strategy, Management, Entrepreneurship, Premium Audit Advisory, And Web Consulting. With professional experiences spanning both Ghana and the United States, Jules has developed a reputation as a thought leader in fields such as corporate governance, leadership, e-commerce, and customer service. His publications explore a variety of topics, including economics, information technology, marketing and branding, making him a prominent voice in discussions on development and business innovation across Africa. Through NubianBiz.com, he actively champions intra-African trade and technology-driven growth to empower SMEs across the continent
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