#BTColumn – A new Middle Passage

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

By Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

Historians generally believe that the first set of enslaved Africans to be landed in the world that was new to Europeans, were transported by a Portuguese ship, the Sao Joao Bautista in 1619. This ship, loaded with kidnapped Africans, was the first of many that would make the trip across the Atlantic from the shores of Africa. The journey now known as the Middle Passage was nothing less than an induction into the hell on earth that ensued once the kidnapped and enslaved Africans were offloaded and sold.

Lerone Bennett, writing in Before the Mayflower, states that the human cargo was packed so tightly in the slave ships that each enslaved African had only coffin space for the journey which could take up to 80 days. Lack of ventilation, exercise, and sanitary facilities favoured the development of diseases and led to a high mortality rate among the enslaved Africans.  Bennett adds that the mortality rate was high enough to encourage sharks to follow slave ships across the Atlantic. 

Some enslaved Africans, like some of the besieged indigenous population of the Caribbean and the Americas, opted to take their own lives and the lives of those shackled to them by jumping into the ocean, maybe in the hope that their spirits would find their way back to the African continent.  Other enslaved Africans, out of sheer desperation to survive the journey, were forced to kill those nearest to them in an effort to gain what little comfort the extra space would afford them for the rest of the journey.

Both the Middle Passage and the system of chattel slavery constitute two of the most inglorious chapters in the history of people of African ancestry. Not only did the African continent suffer the loss of millions of its best and brightest, but the Middle Passage set the stage for centuries of humiliation for the global Black collective. 

Notwithstanding the gory and demeaning details attached to the history of the Middle Passage, the term is being resurrected, dusted off, and rebranded by African and Caribbean political, thought, and business leaders. The recently concluded 30th annual meeting of the Afreximbank, hosted by the government of Ghana, chose for one of its themes, A New Middle Passage by Africans for Africans.

The panel discussion that focused on the Middle Passage theme was chaired by Godfrey Mutizwa, editor-in-chief for CNBC Africa. Other panellists included Gervase Warner, President and CEO of the Massey group from Trinidad, Nardos Bekele-Thomas, CEO of the African Development Agency, Donald Kaberuka, Chairman of the South Bridge Group, and Ken Etete, CEO of the Century Group.

Each panellist in their own way reflected on the meaning of the Middle Passage and the role the African Union and the Afreximbank can play in the opening of a new chapter of the history of the Middle Passage. The difference of course in the new Middle Passage from the old version is the voluntary nature in the movement of personnel, talents, capital, ideas and culture.

Nardos Bekele-Thomas, head of the African Development Agency, called for greater cooperation between the many diasporan agencies and highlighted what could be achieved if governments, private sector, and people worked together to solve funding problems for needed projects in Africa. Gervase Warner of the Massy group from Trinidad stated that there was massive potential for cooperation in investment and in tourism. He added that 400 years of slavery had ingrained different ways of thinking that had served to keep the people of Africa and the Caribbean apart.

Donald Kaberuka reminded his audience that the decline in European population and the steady growth of the population of Africa presented an opportunity for Africans to boost the population of other countries. Kaberuka also reminded his audience that Caribbean blood had been spilled in the independence struggle in Angola. He also mentioned that the Afreximbank could be the fulcrum to facilitate the same kind of economic development witnessed in South East Asia.

Ken Etete agreed with his fellow panellists that the new Middle Passage was pregnant with many new possibilities for the youth of Africa and for those in the diaspora who were willing to invest in the African continent. He lauded the efforts of the Afreximbank which was standing in the gap to
provide financing for capital-intensive projects being undertaken by African and Caribbean governments and other Black investors. Etete however regretted that some of the experiences of returning Africans from the diaspora have not been all positive.

The general consensus generated by the panellists was a definite thumbs up for the concept of a rebranding of the Middle Passage and an acceleration in connectivity between the African continent, the Caribbean and the rest of the African Diaspora. While it is true that raising the needed developmental capital will continue to be a challenge for the Afreximbank and for the governments of Africa and the Caribbean, the structures and mechanism being put in place by the Afreximbank, African and Caribbean governments and the private sector in both regions will help to build the much-needed bridge between a family long separated by the infamy of the original Middle Passage.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of Oreos, Coconuts and Europeans: Rediscovering Our African Identity.