I'm your host, Dr. Ruth Vitsemmo Akumbu. My guest is Sylvia Serbin, and today, we’re going to discuss the Historical Perspective of The Woman King. Sylvia is a historian, journalist, and the author of Queens of Africa and Heroines of the Black Diaspora. Our past informs our present and our future.
Coaching/Consulting/Speaker: https://ruthakumbu.wixsite.com/drakumbu
Sylvia Serbin on Amazons of Dahomey October 24, 2022, with Dr. Akumbu
Origin of slavery on the continent.
The African continent has been the most assaulted area in the world for the deportation of its black populations by other countries. As far back as ancient Egypt, pharaohs attacked the black kingdoms of Nubia to steal their gold and enslave their people. Later, after the invasion of North Africa in the seventh century by Bedouins from Arabia, to impose Islam in this part of the world, West Africa, called at the time the land of the Blacks, was the object of an intense slave trade organized by Arab merchants across the Sahara Desert. This slave trade lasted for 14 centuries, taking free black populations from their land, and selling them as slaves on the slave markets of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. These people were then dispatched to palaces in Arabia, France, Spain, Portugal, India, China, Turkey, Iran, Russia, etc. From the 15th century onwards, it was the turn of the Europeans to join the Arabs in kidnapping these African populations and deporting them across the Atlantic Ocean to the new colonies that Europeans had appropriated in the Americas, Brazil, the West Indies, etc. This is how Africans went to work for free under the whip of slavery to develop these European colonies, whose Native American populations had been exterminated. And it was these Africans who helped to enrich the future European capitalists who would later dominate the world.
When European ships arrived on African shores, loaded with worthless goods, they demanded that men, women, and children be delivered in exchange. Coastal kingdoms, needing to preserve their power against neighboring territories, entered the game to get guns in exchange. The possession of European firearms gave them superiority over enemy armies that had only poisoned arrows and spears. And the more weapons they wanted, the more they had to fight other tribes to take prisoners and sell them to European slave traders. The kingdom of Dahomey, about which the film is concerned, was completely within this reasoning. And it was not the only one. Ghana, Nigeria, Kongo, etc, did the same. The Amazons of Dahomey were not directly involved in the slave trade. They were soldiers and executors. They obeyed orders by bringing back prisoners from their military confrontations. This trade was under the control of the king and high-ranking members of his court who delivered captives to Europeans. The main Amazons’ role was to fight for their country and for their king. Even today, in the so-called democratic western countries, the military obeys orders but does not necessarily profit from them.
How can knowledge about Africa and African warriors contribute to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging?
What is important for us today is to change the image of submission and docility that slavery and colonization have created on black women. When we have a strong temper, we are called aggressive. But nobody wants to recognize us as strong, responsible, combative, and bearers of values such as dignity, a sense of freedom, courage, pride, and heroism.
