Reflections of an American Pastor turned Missionary living in West Africa
I first visited West Africa on a vision trip for American pastors in 2003. For over a decade I made regular trips to West Africa to teach some, but mostly to build relationships and learn what I could about the challenges facing the church in West Africa. In 2017, at the invitation of national church leaders, I moved my family to West Africa to play a support role in equipping church planters and leaders. There is no way to compare my experiences of visiting here on an annual basis and living here. I’ve been on a steep culture and learning curve since the day I stepped foot in Dakar, Senegal.
I want to share eight things that, either I never learned, or I never fully processed before moving to West Africa. These things have helped me start to understand what I still don’t fully understand both about race relations in America and mission dynamics in Africa.
First, the West African slave trade lasted for over 400 years from the 16th Century to the middle of the 19th Century. During that time, an estimated 12-13 million West African men, women, and children were shipped to South America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe where they were sold as merchandise on the open market.
Second, the East African slave trade, sometimes called the Arab slave trade, lasted for over 1200 years, starting in the 7th century and lasting until nearly the 1900’s around the Middle East and Indian Ocean region. Though clear figures are not available an estimated 17-40 million East Africans were sold into slavery during this period. The country of Oman located on the South-Eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula controlled the East African slave trade. If you were to visit Oman you would find many Omanis who still speak Swahili, an East African language. And while there are some small communities of black Omanis who are descendants of slaves there isn’t the African-Omani population one would expect. Why? Most male slaves coming to Oman were castrated and not allow to procreate. To summarize, between the West African and East African slave trade, 20-50 million African men, women and children were sold as chattel around the world.
Third, I live very close to one of the major points of departure for many who were sold to slave traders in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. I regularly take American visitors to one of many slave houses that once lined the coast of Gorée Island during the height of the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. These men, women, and children who were captured as slaves were kept in the most inhumane manner, confined to several small, dark, and damp holding cells meant to sever families ties forever. There is a cell for young children who were separated from their mothers, a cell for virgins who were sold at a premium and often used to entertain slave trade clients, a feeding cell to fatten up slaves who didn’t meet the minimum 60 kilogram (132 lbs) weight requirement for sale, several cells for healthy men and women, and punishment cells. I’ve stood in all of these. Gorée Island use to be known as “shark island” because slaves who got sick or died where thrown into the water.
Fourth, the strongest and healthiest West Africans slaves were sold to slave traders in-land. An estimated 15 to 30 percent of these died during the march to their coastal point of departure or in confinement at a slave house. Another 10 to 15 percent died during the trans-Atlantic voyage which lasted from 1 to 3 months depending on destination. So, for every 100 slaves who reached the Americas, another 40 men, women, and children were murdered or died in transit.
Fifth, missionaries played a role along the coast in West Africa as slave brokers. Of all the presidents and international dignitaries, including most of our recent American presidents, who have visited the slave house at Gorée Island, to date the only formal apology was by Pope Jean Paul in February 2002. He said, “How can one forget the enormous suffering inflicted, ignoring the most elementary rights of man, on the people deported from the African continent…From this African sanctuary of black pain, we beg forgiveness for the above.” He also referred to the conditions of the slave house as that of a “concentration camp.”
Sixth, you may have heard someone say, “African tribes sold one another into slavery long before the Europeans arrived.” While it is true that inter-tribal conflict sometimes ended in enslavement of enemy tribes, this does nothing to excuse or fully explain the European dynamic of the slave trade. Senegalese author, Tidiane N’Diaye said in an interview that “Slavery existed in practically all civilizations. This was also the case in Africa before settlers came. Thus, Arab Muslims (Arab Slave Trade) encountered already existing structures, which facilitated the purchase of slaves for their purposes.” It is also true that slave traders and their accomplices put tribal groups in the position of either selling out on one another or being taken themselves. Slave traders would come ashore with guns and rum and offer them to tribes willing to take slaves from other tribal groups. These tribes had little understanding of the conditions and circumstances that they were selling neighboring tribes into.
Seventh, there is a small plaque on display in the slave house on Gorée island that recognizes the work of William Wilberforce, a British evangelical Christian and abolitionist who led the parliamentary campaign to end the Slave trade with the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the effort to abolish slavery in most of the British Empire in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. William Wilberforce is an example to all of us of how our Christian convictions should be lived out to bring systemic change and to defend the most basic of human rights for all.
Eighth, on the heels of the abolition of slavery between the years of 1870-1900, began the great “African Scramble,” an aggressive and competitive European campaign to colonize Africa for its vast resources and strategic military purposes. European countries propped up tyrannical leaders, set up puppet governments, exploited countries for their natural resources, forced locals to learn European languages and embrace aspects of their culture, and gave them religion. As a result, missionary efforts during the final half of what is known as the “Great Century” in world missions (1790-1910) were easily confused with colonial ambition, and the gospel itself was laden with western cultural values, assumptions, and methodologies.
Let me share some humble conclusions. These eight things have caused me to pause and reflect more deeply than ever on race relations in America and the struggle to end systemic inequality. I’ve heard many in America say things like, “We didn’t do these things” or “That was then, this is now” or “How long are we going to live in the past?” Others have asked, “Why is Africa so poor?” For 400 years in West Africa and 1200 years in East Africa the strongest, brightest, and capable human resources (men and women) were taken out of African homes, communities, and countries to support Western economies and further western empires. Imagine for a moment if for the next 400 years all of the strongest, brightest, and capable Americans were snatched away. Where would that leave us? What this does to a continent and to the psyche of a people is what you see today in Africa. Africa is not poor! Africa is rich in culture, natural resources, creativity, and potential; but it is still recovering from centuries of foreign domination and demoralization.
From the other side of the ocean, my African American friends have parents or grandparents who lived with Jim Crow laws and some of their parents and grandparents were slaves. Can you imagine saying to your Jewish friends, “I know the holocaust was horrible, but isn’t it time to move on?” No compassionate person would say this or imply this in their actions or inactions. But I hear this sentiment as it relates to slavery from many in America. It’s only been 60 years since the civil rights movement and 155 years since the civil war! America has made progress in the area of race relations and equality, but you can’t cancel out the memory or impact of 400 years of slavery followed by 100 years of barely-there-citizenship so easily. African Americans still face an undeniable uphill climb educationally, economically, and socially. We can no longer overlook the fact that the median household income for African Americans is 41% less than the median income of white households or that Black and Brown men and women are murdered or arrested in much higher rates than white men and women.
Without sounding trite, trendy, or ignoring the church’s troubled and divided past in Africa or America, I still believe that the gospel offers this world the greatest hope for change. I’m not suggesting that you have to be a Christian to deplore racism or to fight against social injustice. Nor am I suggesting that we can divorce belief in the gospel from the fervent pursuit of social justice. It was the gospel that moved William Wilberforce to dedicate his life to the abolition of slavery. And it was the gospel that gripped the heart of the “Amazing Grace” hymn writer, John Newton, and transformed him from a slave ship captain to an abolitionist and pastor. By the gospel, I’m speaking specifically of the reconciling power of Jesus’ death on the cross to bring sinners into a right relationship with God and one another. The gospel continues to humble me and reveal my pride and prejudices, paving the way for better listening and understanding. The gospel empowers me to turn over every unturned stone in my heart to see what lies beneath knowing that a gracious Savior stands ready to help me. It is through the gospel that God is also creating one new redeemed man and community, the church (Eph. 2:14-16). The answer, best I can tell, is not the isolation of races to do their own thing and figure it out in their communities, churches, or the world, but partnerships built upon gospel humility and love. Perhaps the starting place is to own this painful part of our American history and its lingering effects, to acknowledge bias, and to learn from image bearers who are culturally different than we are.
