Introduction

What was Africa like when the slave traders first went there?  The sources on this page will allow you to come to your own conclusion.

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1  Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

Olaudah Equiano, a former slave to a Royal Navy Officer, became one of the leading members of the campaign to abolish the slave trade in Britain.  There is evidence that he was born, not in Africa, but in Carolina in America.

I was born, in 1745, in the kingdom of Benin, in a charming, fruitful valley.
Our manner of living is entirely plain ... bullocks, goats and poultry supply most of our food...  Before we taste the food we always wash our hands; indeed, our cleanliness at all times is extreme...  We have no strong or alcoholic liquors, our main drink is palm wine...
Our wants are few and easily supplied; of course we have few manufactures. They consist for the most part of cloth, pottery, ornaments and instruments of war and farming ...
Our land is uncommonly rich and fruitful, and produces all kinds of vegetables in great abundance...  Agriculture is our chief employment; and everyone, even the children and women, are engaged in it.  Thus we are all used to work from our earliest years.  Everyone contributes to the common welfare; and, as we do not know idleness, we have no beggars...
The West Indian planters prefer the slaves of Benin to those of any other part of Africa, for their hardiness, intelligence, honesty and zeal.

2  John Lok, 1554

Lok was one of 19 children of a London cloth merchant.  In 1554 he sailed three ships on a trading voyage to West Africa, returning with a cargo of gold, pepper, elephant's tusks ... and five Africans to learn English and act is interpreters on future voyages.  The voyage home was dificult, and Lok never went again.

They were a people of beastly living, without God, law, religion, or community.

3  William Snelgrave, 1734

Snelgrave was the captain of a number of slaving expeditions, and wrote a book defending the slave trade.  

The Natives are very barbarous and uncivilised ... extremely lazy ... full of treachery and lies ... and addicted to stealing.

4  Willem Bosman, 1688-1702

Bosman went to the African Gold Coast as an apprentice aged 16, and rose to become the chief factor (head merchant) of the Dutch West India Company's factory (trading post) at Elmina.  He returned to Holland in 1702 after 14 years in Africa. 

The Negroes are all, without exception, crafty, villainous, fraudulent, and very seldom to be trusted, being sure to miss no opportunity of cheating a European, nor indeed, one another...
They are besides incredibly careless and stupid.

5  Henry Nicholls, 1805

Henry Nicholls was an explorer, sent out to West Africa in 1805 by the British Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa – set up in 1788 to discover new plants and markets in the interior of Africa.  Nicholls got a fever and died, just three months into his journey.

Every eighth day is Calabar Sunday, when they drink mimbo [palm wine] all day long; and at night there is not a sober man or woman in the town unless they cannot get mimbo.  The next day they sleep all day long.

6   A human sacrifice ordered by the King of Dahomey

Many Europeans described the cruelty of the African rulers This is drawing appeared in 1879 in the French Journal of Travel – Adventures on Sea and Land, a magazine full of exciting stories written by travellers.

7  Samuel Purchas, an English vicar, 1625

Purchas never travelled more than 200 miles from Essex but, living close to a seafaring port, he collected and edited a vast number of accounts of seamen's voyages which he published in four huge volumes.

[The people of Benin] are a gentle, loving people who do not hurt anyone, especially strangers.

8  Procession of the Oba of Benin

The procession of the Oba (king) of Benin in 1668.  In the front are musicians, followed by the warriors and the townspeople.  The town of Benin is in the background. This image appeared in a European book, Description of Africa, by the Durch geographer Olfert Dapper, published in Amsterdam in 1668.  Dapper never left the Netherlands himself, but had access to the records of the Dutch West India Company.

9  André Brue, 1725

Brue was a French explorer and merchant, who lived in Senegal for 16 years.

I was surprised to see the land so well cultivated, the lowlands divided by small canals, all sowed with rice, their beef excellent, poultry numerous.
[They are] kind to strangers with whom they are fond of trading... [although] the frequent wrongs done them by Europeans have led to them being suspicious and shy.