No commemoration that records human suffering is complete without a broader awareness that expands to explore the shades and shadows that are gathered to hinder clarity and closure to the reasons ‘WHY and HOW’ the acts that are now memories were created in the first instance. What did our ancestors do to merit this treatment? If we look at African history, we can summarise from the items we locate that we were probably the citizens of potential vassal kingdoms whose conquests demanded the prevention of layers of remaining peoples and related tribes that could rebel against the imposed status. The fall of the kingdom of Ghana (not to be confused with the modern state of Ghana) in the Sudan, when vassal states converted to Mohammedanism, especially led by the Almoravid movement, brought into the Sudan by Berber Arabs, to which the vassal African kingdoms found a useful philosophy towards unification against GHANA, 1042-1054 . See-Topics of West African History by A.Adu Boahen.

So far, we do understand that the system of enslavement in not new, it is an ancient system of exploitation, but however, the slavery conducted against Africans in the era of the Atlantic slave trade may have been somewhat different in that both Christendom and Mohammedanism used religion to justify slavery against Africans. Twisting supposing religious text to justify slavery on racist terms, in current Guyana, most Religious groups led by African descendants, defining themselves as Christian, have demonstrated no inclination to explore past religious and philosophical theories and to point those original injustices towards the guilty, much less even discuss that era, regardless of the documentation that now exists, they seem quite comfortable where they are socially. This article will explore the terrible process that embodied the journey into bondage. One must understand that our ancestors were not enslaved when sold to the Slave ships; they were sold into enslavement upon arrival here. The journey of new captives into slavery constituted an on-ship uneasiness from Ship crews, which employed the skills that the slave ship crew learnt from many journeys. Africans had no desire to leave Africa. Thus, on ships, rebellions were common, as well as suicides, and this also could be traced to tribal origins and pre-capture occupations.

The African people brought here knew secular institutions common to past eras of tribal sustenance that benefited the commerce of the enslavers. For example, Henry Bolingbroke- 1799-1806, indicated that European houses permitted a scrubbing of their homes with lemons every morning by enslaved women, which diffuses a beautiful odour, while he laments the following; “ I scarcely ever saw a hand basin in any of their houses, even where there are white females.” What could have prevented the launch of scent-pleasing disinfectants, not much later?

As we commemorate ‘MAAFA’, we must recognise that the guilty of the Slave trade were both self-centered Africans and Europeans. As Ottabah Cugoano published in his memoirs in 1787, he was a Fanti slave who was kidnapped as a child and sold at a European fort for a musket, lead and clothes. He concluded himself as a victim of both purchaser and seller. See-History of Slavery: by Susanne Everett: What tips that balance in the factor of that conclusion is the duration of the yoke upon the slave, and his generations, enabling the foundation through his generations of economic empires, while subject to the creation of himself as a ‘colonial’ a status of self-denial, self-contempt, and ‘Timeline forgetfulness:’

Let MAAFA, on October 12, on the sea wall, be an experience of awareness, addressing what has been paid for what must be partaken in. With what transpired, this article could not deal with the horrors of the journey in detail. That inquiry must also embrace a sober perspective of worlds we must all come to understand, perhaps emotionally at first, but then return to the sobriety of rational persistence resulting from the awakening of a long sleep.