Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang: Slave Trade Story Must Be Told Better
The Dean of Graduate Studies of the University of Cape Coast, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has stressed the need to further examine the physical and material evidence of the slave trade in order to tell a better story about that inhumane experience.
According to her, the story of the slave trade had hardly been told and re-addressing that history was relevant in giving power to Africans both at home and abroad.
“It is important to emphasise that, perhaps, some Africans gleefully did march their kith and kin onto an exchange for mirrors and glass necklaces; it is important to begin to articulate the fact, in multi-disciplinary terms, that some Africans fought enslavement,” she remarked.
Prof. Naana Opoku-Agyemang made the remark in Accra on Tuesday when she delivered the inaugural lecture of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS).
It was on the topic, “Where There Is No Silence: Articulations of Resistance to Enslavement”.
The lecture was based on a research she undertook on a literary examination of oral accounts of resistance to the slave experience in some communities in Ghana, namely, Sankana and Gwollu in northern Ghana, and Nzulezu in the Western Region, as well as Ganvie in Benin.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang, who is a Fulbright Senior Scholar and Fellow, noted that resistance was a basic human response to aggression and wondered if a traumatic experience such as the slave trade could be totally forgotten as established research findings seemed to suggest.
She observed that far from being forgotten, the memory of the slave trade informed the daily life of people of African descent, such as farming practices, building style and material, weaponry, habitation, human and gender relations.
“It may be beneficial to understand, for example, the influences at play in the similarities in the building techniques of defence walls in geographical spaces now named Northern Ghana and Mali,” she suggested, pointing out that the results could become important in the application of indigenous ideas towards the development of a more current resistance effort.
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According to her, the story of the slave trade had hardly been told and re-addressing that history was relevant in giving power to Africans both at home and abroad.
“It is important to emphasise that, perhaps, some Africans gleefully did march their kith and kin onto an exchange for mirrors and glass necklaces; it is important to begin to articulate the fact, in multi-disciplinary terms, that some Africans fought enslavement,” she remarked.
Prof. Naana Opoku-Agyemang made the remark in Accra on Tuesday when she delivered the inaugural lecture of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS).
It was on the topic, “Where There Is No Silence: Articulations of Resistance to Enslavement”.
The lecture was based on a research she undertook on a literary examination of oral accounts of resistance to the slave experience in some communities in Ghana, namely, Sankana and Gwollu in northern Ghana, and Nzulezu in the Western Region, as well as Ganvie in Benin.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang, who is a Fulbright Senior Scholar and Fellow, noted that resistance was a basic human response to aggression and wondered if a traumatic experience such as the slave trade could be totally forgotten as established research findings seemed to suggest.
She observed that far from being forgotten, the memory of the slave trade informed the daily life of people of African descent, such as farming practices, building style and material, weaponry, habitation, human and gender relations.
“It may be beneficial to understand, for example, the influences at play in the similarities in the building techniques of defence walls in geographical spaces now named Northern Ghana and Mali,” she suggested, pointing out that the results could become important in the application of indigenous ideas towards the development of a more current resistance effort.