Talk:Slave Coast of West Africa

The people of Benin are of nigerien descent from Niger and the slaves in Togo are descendants of both ghanaian and beninese(nigerien) people.

DOES THIS ARTICLE CONTAIN INSIDIDOUS PRO-SLAVERY PROPAGANDA?
Consider the following statement: "Slaves... used the exchange routes to travel to new places which aided in hybridizing European and African cultures."

This could only have been written by the most cynical of white supremacist'editors' with an agenda of trying to downplay the horrendous suffering of Africans during the Middle Passage.

What reasonable person would think the following: that for an innocent young woman to be kidnapped from their family, force marched in chains on a starvation diet across hundreds of miles of tropical forest, held in a cramped, tropical prison, herded into the miserable hold of a cargo ship and transported by a gang of rapist pirates across thousands of miles of ocean; inspected, beaten, auctioned and sold in a public market place in a foreign land, then beaten and whipped as forced labour on plantations and mines for the rest of her life, whilst watching any surviving children raped and sold into slavery, was simply an opportunity to be 'used to travel to new places'.

Such a description, is the most cynical piece of racist propaganda I have read in years and wikipedia ought to be ashamed for playing host to such neo-nazi inspired trash. Pathetic! That is the reason why I have added the POV tag to the article...Ackees (talk) 08:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't see what the fuss is about. Slavery did lead to syncretism of cultures, which is what the statement says. Illegitimate Barrister 00:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes it did, but not because slaves "used the exchange routes to travel," which is terminology that implies both voluntary passage and that the people in question wanted to travel in the first place. Jsamans (talk) 15:51, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree the wording is ambiguous. It's a matter of fact isn't it? Did slaves, despite their slave status, have the ability to travel along these routes, even if still under the control of their masters? If they did not then the wording is poor. If they did, then the wording need to be changed to reflect the terms under which they travelled. Philafrenzy (talk) 16:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree that this should be changed asap. It reads as if slaves were taking a voluntary trip to whatever destination. This is patently not the case.Richard Nowell (talk) 09:45, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Have started a discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Slave_Coast .Richard Nowell (talk) 10:14, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I have amended the sentence to read: In addition to the slaves, free men used the exchange routes to travel to new places, and both slaves and free travelers aided in hybridizing European and African cultures.  The important point of the sentence is not really a comment on the cause of this travel (forced or voluntary)... but about the result of the travel (ie that it resulted in hybridizing cultures). Blueboar (talk) 17:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * How about the use of the word 'blending', rather than hybridizing, as in: "aided in blending European and African cultures"? Hybridizing seems scientific, as if talking about breeding plants.Richard Nowell (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem with that on my end... It's OK to be WP:BOLD... as long as we are not talking about a direct quote, if you think a sentence or word needs to change - go ahead and change it. If someone seriously objects, they can always revert your change (please don't take it personally)... just be willing to discuss the situation if they revert. Blueboar (talk) 02:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok changed word and removed NPOV tag, as it was for the questionable sentence. The article seems somewhat under-referenced, so it's not easy to tell where the source comes from. Season's greetings Richard Nowell (talk) 10:20, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

So which part is it ?
It seems a bit vague that there is no actual description of which part of the southern coast of west africa was the "slave coast". I'd be guessing that as Ghana was the "gold coast" and Cote d'Ivoire was the "ivory coast",   then the slave coast was probably Togo and Benin,   but that would be a guess and the average wikipedia user is probably less well informed on historical matters, than I am. Also, the second of the two maps seems to show this. But really, it would probably be more informative to actual state that the slave coast was the coast of what are now Togo and Benin, for the benefit of less perceptive people.Lathamibird (talk) 08:30, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

"To" not "through"
I've replaced the words "through the 19th century" to "to the late 19th century". The Atlantic slave trade was illegal in most places by the early 19th century, and effectively over by the late 19th century: see Atlantic slave trade. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know, with a cite for the correct information. -- The Anome (talk) 11:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Reference
, are you sure this is the right reference?

It looks like an unrelated paper on neurology. Please check. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:34, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Europeans are Slave Traders yet Africans Merchants !
Language seems switched. Sureley the Africans that enslaved their fellow men (which would have been illegal in Britain at the time) were slave traders. They enslaved people and traded them for goods. The Europeans were merchants buying goods in Europe and exchanging them for enslaved Africans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.95.101 (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Apparent gibberish-sourcing
Moving here content with mismatched sourcing: "This complex exchange fostered political and cultural as well as commercial connections between these three regions. A cultural exchange of religions, architectural styles, languages, knowledge, and other new goods took place this time."86.177.202.189 (talk) 16:22, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

 * Hum... Having now checked the specific edits in which the sourcing was added into pre-existing unsourced text, it seems to me that the first cited source (inserted here was almost certainly a completely gf mistake (perhaps due to a software glitch?), while the second (inserted here is probably not be a mismatch at all (I can't access the content of the ref). Both sources were added in by User:Dbaidoo – a completely gf contributer with a professional background in librarianship (last seen on en.wp in June 2021). In the circumstances, I feel it may be appropriate  to restore the content, while removing the obviously mismatched source. 86.177.202.189 (talk) 17:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC) 86.177.202.189 (talk) 17:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)