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Episode 1: Stolen
Kidnapped by their tribal enemies in Africa or by the white sea captains
who ferried them to these shores, despoiled of their customs, torn from
their families and villages, countless African tribesmen were shunted
across the Atlantic in the squalid holds of the ships. This nefarious traffic
in human flesh, which had begun as a trickle, quickly became a torrent,
until by 1860…one-sixth of the people then living in the so-called “land of
the free” were in fact slaves.
James Mellon
Bullwhip Days pp xi-xii
Summary
Aminata is kidnapped while on a trek with
her parents to deliver a baby. She is
shackled in iron chains to a coffle with other
men, women and children and forced to
walk the 2,200 kilometer journey from her
home in Bayo, in current day Niger, to the
slave fort on Bunce Island on the coast of
Sierra Leone.
After enduring the middle passage across the
Atlantic, she is sold at a slave auction to the
owner of an indigo plantation. There, her
life begins as chattel – the property of
Robinson Appleby.
Historical Context
Between 1500 and 1890 approximately 22
million people were taken from Africa and
sold to the rest of the world (Inikori, p. 83).
Much of this took place as a part of a
“triangular trade.” Enslaved people were
taken from Africa to the Americas and sold.
Raw materials that were the product of their
labour were then transported to Britain for
manufacture into other goods, including the
sugar cane for rum production. The
manufactured goods were then used to
purchase people that had been gathered by
human traffickers at slave forts along the
coast of Africa, such as the one on Bunce
Island were Aminata was held.
People from different groups were involved
in the kidnapping and transport of captives
across the “big river.” This included
Chekura, who himself became enslaved
when he was of no further use to the
enslavers.
Europeans were faced with both legal and
moral dilemmas over the enslavement of
other people. European law forbade the
enslavement of Christians. Spanish jurist
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