Slave Trade: Nigerian writer opens up about her family's dark past

Writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes about her family's complex relationship with slave trade business and slaves

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani has written an enlightening and informative piece about the history of slavery in her family for The New Yorker.

Published on Sunday, July 15, 2018, Nwaubani tells the story of her great-grandfather Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku who was a wealthy man. Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku was a wealthy man who dealt in palm produce and the trade of human beings.

"In the late nineteenth century, he carried a slave-trading license from the Royal Niger Company, an English corporation that ruled southern Nigeria. His agents captured slaves across the region and passed them to middlemen, who brought them to the ports of Bonny and Calabar and sold them to white merchants" writes Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku had a license to sell slaves that was given to him by the Royal Niger company in the 19th century. With his agents, he captured slaves within the South-Eastern region and handed them to middlemen who moved them to ports in Bonny and Calabar to be sold, white merchants.

Oriaku was so influential and important in his day that leaders in his community gave him their daughters to marry. He judged over many court cases. He was also revered among white people who had to cut a piece of their hair and send it to him to prove they were Caucasian before they could be invited to his home.

When he died, a leopard was killed and six slaves were buried alive with him.

Knowing about her family's past has disturbed Nwaubani.

"...I’ve felt a growing sense of unease. African intellectuals tend to blame the West for the slave trade, but I knew that white traders couldn’t have loaded their ships without help from Africans like my great-grandfather.

I read arguments for paying reparations to the descendants of American slaves and wondered whether someone might soon expect my family to contribute" she explains.

Her cousin Chioma feels more guilty about her family's past. "I cry and cry and ask God to forgive our ancestors."

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani goes on to write about her family's complex relationship with the offsprings of her great grandfather's slaves. Known as  Ohu, they are regarded as second-class citizens in Igbo land.

"The descendants of freed slaves in southern Nigeria called Ohu, still face significant stigma. Igbo culture forbids them from marrying freeborn people and denies them traditional leadership titles such as Eze and Ozo" she writes for the New Yorker. 

"(The osu, an untouchable caste descended from slaves who served at shrines, face even more severe persecution.) My father considers the ohu in our family a thorn in our side, constantly in opposition to our decisions. In the nineteen-eighties, during a land dispute with another family, two ohu families testified against us in court" she further adds.

While dealing with the osu, many Igbo families who profited from the slave trade have also had to deal with the so-called spiritual baggage of profiting from the sale of human beings.

"Last July, my father’s cousin Sunny, a professor of engineering, visited my parents to discuss another concern: a growing enmity in our family. Minor arguments had led relatives to stop speaking to one another. Several had become estranged from the family. 'We always have one major disagreement or division or the other,' my father’s cousin Samuel told me.

My cousin Ezeugo was not surprised by the worrying trend. 'Across Igbo land, wherever there was slave trade with the white people, things never go well,' he said. “They always have problems there. Everybody has noticed it.” My relatives thought that our family’s history was coming back to haunt us" she writes.

In the article, she reveals that her family had to undergo a special fasting and prayer session to deal with the karma of dealing in slaves. She, however, mentioned that the ohu members in their family were not invited.

from pulse.ng - Nigeria's entertainment & lifestyle platform online