The Editor, Sir:

Two lines from Dr. Garth A. Rattray's excellent writings - "First we need to address the grievous role that our African forefathers played; they betrayed and sold us out. I understand that some there still refer to us derogatorily as 'slavery babies'." - bring to mind something I said in my then office lunch-room in an effort to quieten two groups of young persons arguing pro and con about whether Lawrence Rowe et al were justified in accepting "honorary white" status to enable their playing cricket in South Africa.

I was not involved in the discussion, but it was disturbing my perusal of the newspaper so I said, "Lawrence Rowe's great granpuppa probably sold his own people for a bagful a beads or an axe-head." Deathly silence (the calm before the storm) fell because at the time it was never said aloud or perhaps never been admitted that in a lot of cases, African leaders sold/traded their own people to "the white man".

Simple logic

Somehow, long ago, I had arrived at the conviction that scurvy-ridden mostly shanghaied press-ganged sailors and assorted young rogues from say, the Liverpool dockyards, would have been incapable of penetrating the African continent and capturing and shipping Africans, without the assistance of Africans themselves. Simple logic.

Some "white men" chose to settle in Africa also, bringing their religion and thirst for land, minerals, etc. and there hangs another tale. Many years later, Alex Haley's Roots highlighted another slave trade route - the Muslim traders, hence the villagers' practice of the Islamic religion.

I am, etc.,

MM

monmac007@yahoo

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