The African Slave Voice from Identity conflicts in the Bight of Biafra 1750-1950 :The Banyang of Cameroon and the Perpetuation of Slave Identity(Conference paper)

Paper Abstract:

 Slaving societies in the Bight of Biafra seemed to have grappled with slave identity conflicts for long even after the abolition of slavery. Enslaved persons in the area fought against the perpetration and use of slave identity as the basis for discrimination against them. This study focuses on slave identity conflicts among the Banyang of Cameroon who as middlemen in the slave trade between the Cameroon Grassfields and Atlantic coast at Bimbia, Rio del Rey and Calabar built a slavery system characterized by the perpetuation of slave identity for all generations of slaves. It is shown in this paper how the perpetuation of slave identity made Banyang slavery conflict prone. Slave voices as well as those of their enslavers are vividly discerned from informants’ accounts on identity conflicts in the area. Conflicts which have pitted Banyang of slave origin against indigenous ones, on political, social and economic matters, often have identity perpetration at the origin.