Igbo people in the Atlantic slave trade: Difference between revisions

The [[Igbo people|Igbo]], whoseof [[Igboland|traditional]] territory(in present-day [[Nigeria]]<ref>{{cite) bookbecame |title=Territorialone Disputesof andthe Resourceprincipal Management:ethnic Agroups Globalto Handbookbe |first=Rongxingenslaved |last=Guoduring |publisher=Novathe Publishers[[Atlantic |year=2006slave |isbn=1-60021-445-2trade]]. |page=130An |url=https://booksestimated 14.google.com/books?id=z5Le627xQLgC&pg=PA130}}</ref>6% becameof oneall enslaved people were taken from the [[Bight of Biafra]], a bay of the principalAtlantic ethnicOcean groupsthat toextends befrom enslavedthe during[[Nun River|Nun outlet]] of the [[AtlanticNiger slaveRiver]] trade(Nigeria) to [[Limbé, Cameroon|Limbe]]. ([[Cameroon]]) to [[Cape Lopez]] ([[Gabon]]) <ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/64296/Bight-of-Biafra |title=Bight of Biafra |publisher=Britannica Online Encyclopedia |access-date=2008-11-19}}</ref> An estimated 14.6% of all slaves were taken from the Bight of Biafra between 1650 and 1900. The Bight’s major slave trading ports were located in [[Bonny, Nigeria|Bonny]] and [[Calabar]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Bailey|first=Anne Caroline|url=https://archive.org/details/africanvoicesofa00bail|title=African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame|publisher=Beacon Press|year=2005|isbn=0-8070-5512-3|edition=illustrated|page=[https://archive.org/details/africanvoicesofa00bail/page/80 80]|url-access=registration}}</ref>

== History ==
The majority of Igboenslaved slavesIgbo were kidnapped during village raids.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} The journey for Igboenslaved slavesIgbo often began in the ancient [[Long Juju Slave Route of Arochukwu|Cave Temple]] that was located in [[Aro people|Arochukwu]] Kingdom. <ref>{{Cite web|title=Introduction to Igbo Farm Village at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia|url=http://www.cisandiigbo.com/igbo-farm-village-frontier-culture-museum-virginia/|date=2016-01-05|website=CISA - Council of Igbo States in Americas|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref> During this period, the three Igbo Kingdoms followed the same culture and religion, yet tended to operate very differently from each other. The Kingdom of [[Kingdom of Nri|Nri]] and the Independent Igbo States (confederation of independently ruled Igbo states) did not practice slavery, and slavesenslaved people from neighbouring lands would often flee to these kingdoms in order to be set free. Arochukwu, on the other hand, practiced a system of [[indentured servitude]] that was remarkably different from [[Slavery|chattel slavery]] in the Americas. Eventually, with

Europeans beginningbegan totheir encroachencroachment on Igbo territory, causing the kingdoms to desire weaponry to defend themselves. In order to obtain European goods and weaponry, Arochukwu began to raid villages of the other Igbo kingdoms{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} - primarily those located in the Igbo hinterlands. People would be captured, regardless of gender, social status, or age. SlavesEnslaved people could have been originally farmers, nobility, or even people who had committed petty crimes. <ref>{{Cite web|title=Introduction to Igbo Farm Village at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia|url=http://www.cisandiigbo.com/igbo-farm-village-frontier-culture-museum-virginia/|date=2016-01-05|website=CISA - Council of Igbo States in Americas|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref> These captured slavespeople would be taken and sold to European slave traders on the coast. Another way people were enslaved was through the divine oracle who resided in the Cave Temple complex. <ref>{{Cite web|title=Introduction to Igbo Farm Village at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia|url=http://www.cisandiigbo.com/igbo-farm-village-frontier-culture-museum-virginia/|date=2016-01-05|website=CISA - Council of Igbo States in Americas|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref>

All Igbos practiced divination called [[Ifá|Afa]], but the Kingdom of Arochukwu was different because it was headed by a divine [[oracle]] who was in charge of making decisions for the king. During this time, if someone committed a crime, was in debt, or did something considered an "abomination" (for example, the killing of certain kinds of animals was considered an abomination due to its association with certain deities), they would be taken to the cave complex to face the oracle for sentencing. The oracle, who was also influenced by the demands of European slave traders, would sentence these people to slavery, even for small crimes. The victim would be commanded to walk further into the cave so that the spirits could "devour" them, but, in reality, they were taken to an opening on the other side and loaded directly onto a waiting boat. This boat would take them to a slave ship en route to the Americas.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

The Igbo were dispersed to Barbados in large numbers. [[Olaudah Equiano]], a famous Igbo author, abolitionist and ex-slaveformerly enslaved person, was dropped off there after being kidnapped from his hometown near the Bight of Biafra. After arriving in Barbados he was promptly shippedtrafficked to [[Virginia]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Equiano|first=Olaudah|year= 2005 | title =[[The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano|The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African]]|publisher=Gutenberg Project}}</ref> At his time, 44 percent of the 90,000 [[Ethnic groups in Africa|Africans]] disembarking on the island (between 1751 and 1775) were from the [[bight (geography)|bight]]. The links between Barbados and the Bight of Biafra had begun in the mid-seventeenth century, with half of the African captives arriving on the island originating from there.<ref>{{cite book |title=Black Experience and the Empire |first1=Philip D. |last1=Morgan |first2=Sean |last2=Hawkins |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |isbn=0-19-929067-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=11EBNE8Mb60C&pg=PA82 |page=82}}</ref>

Haiti [[Slavery in Haiti|had many Igboenslaved slavesIgbo]]. There is still the [[Haitian Creole|Creole]] saying of ''Nou se Igbo'' (We are Igbos).<ref>{{cite book|first=Rabbi |last=Pinchas of Haiti |title=Life in a Haitian valley |publisher=Octagon Books |year=1964 |page=21}}</ref> Aspects of Haitian culture that exhibit this can be seen in the [[loa]], a Haitian [[loa]] (or deity) created by the in the [[Vodun]] religion.<ref name="jamaicaigbo">{{cite book | last = Lovejoy | first = Paul | title = Identity in the Shadow of Slavery | publisher = Continuum International Publishing Group | pages=58–59 | year = 2000 | isbn = 0-8264-4725-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEHVCsSFRUcC&pg=PA58}}</ref>

[[File:Grave of Archibald Monteith, Carmel Moravian Church, Jamaica, 1968.png|thumb|The grave of an Igboenslaved slaveIgbo, Archibald Monteith (1880-1864), in the [[Carmel Moravian Church]] of [[Westmoreland Parish|Westmoreland]].]]

Bonny and Calabar emerged as major embarkation points of enslaved West Africans destined for Jamaica's slave markets in the 18th century.<ref name="transatlantic-his">{{cite book|title=Trans-Atlantic dimensions of ethnicity in the African diaspora |first1=Paul E. |last1=Lovejoy |pages=85–86 |first2=David Vincent |last2=Trotman |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2003 |isbn=0-8264-4907-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nSOyBs14tHEC&pg=PA85}}</ref> Dominated by [[Bristol slave trade|Bristol]] and [[Liverpool]] slave ships, these ports were used primarily for the supply of slavesenslaved people to [[British America|British colonies in the Americas]]. In Jamaica, the bulk of Igboenslaved slavesIgbo arrived relatively later than the rest of other arrivals of Africans on the Island in the period after the 1750s. There was a general rise in the number of enslaved people arriving to the Americas, particularly British colonies, from the Bight of Biafra in the 18th century; the heaviest of these forced migrations occurred between 1790 and 1807.<ref>{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Jamaican heritage |first=Olive |last=Senior |publisher=Twin Guinep Publishers |year=2003 |isbn=976-8007-14-1}}</ref> The result of such slaving patterns made Jamaica, after [[Virginia]], the second most common destination for slavesenslaved arrivingpeople trafficked from the Bight of Biafra; as the Igbo formed the majority from the Bight, they became largely represented in Jamaica in the 18th and 19th centuries.<ref>{{cite book|title=Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia |first=Douglas B. |last=Chambers |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |pages=14, 159 |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-60473-246-7}}</ref>

From the mid-1600s to 1830, the US importedtrafficked enslaved Igbos to the states of Virginia and [[Maryland]] in order to provideprofit from their labour foron tobacco plantations. The presence of the Igbo in this region was so profound that the [[Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia]] decided to erect a full-scale traditional Igbo village in [[Staunton, Virginia]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=CISA - Council of Igbo States in Americas - CISA is a USA-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Igbo culture worldwide|url=https://www.cisandiigbo.com/|website=CISA - Council of Igbo States in Americas|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref>

In 1803, 75 Igbos committed suicide after arriving in Dunbar Creek in [[Savannah, GAGeorgia]]. The act of resistance is known as Igbo Landing today.<ref>{{cite book|title=Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora |last=Lovejoy |first=Paul E. |isbn=0-8264-4907-7 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2003 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Voices of the Poor in Africa |first=Elizabeth Allo |last=Isichei |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |year=2002 |page=81}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The River Flows on: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America |first=Walter C. |last=Rucker |isbn=0-8071-3109-1 |publisher=LSU Press |year=2006 |page=52}}</ref> The Natchez planter, [[William Dunbar]]{{dubious|date=December 2023}}, wrote in 1807 that enslaved Igbos were not preferred in his district.<ref>Gary S. Dunbar. "William Dunbar". in Patrick H. Artmstrong and Geoffrey J. Martin. editors on behalf of the Commission on the History of Geographical Thought of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science. (2000). ''Geographers : biobibliographical studies, v. 19''. Strand, London; New York, NY : Mansell Publishing Limited. pp. 28 ff. {{ISBN|0720123771}}.</ref>