“There was a small cannon on the table, another relic from the past. It was used to announce the arrival of a ship from the high seas, and also to announce a curfew in the town. After the sound of the third cannon at night, the curfew began until morning, and any freeborn caught during this time was enslaved. It was the law. “All this town was called the Slave Corridors,” the guide explained. According to a recent article by Henry Gates, most of the slaves from Nigeria were from the Igbo tribe. I could not get a definite answer to my question of just how the slavers got hold of Igbo men and women who lived far off across the Niger and brought them to Badagry and the other slave ports in the country, to be sold off. The most definite response I got was that the slaves were brought from everywhere, and even a resident of the town could be enslaved for walking at the wrong time of the night. To trade, the Europeans rejected the cowrie shells that was currency in Badagry. Instead, they traded by barter. One bottle of whiskey was equal to ten slaves. A big cannon was exchanged for a hundred. On one slave market day in Badagry, up to 300 slaves were sold, we were told. About seventeen thousand were sold per annum.”

Read the rest here. The hard copy of the paper has a very fantastic cover photo of mine. Good job, NEXT.

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You may also read up this article “Appraising arts and heritage in Black History Month“ in the same paper: .

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My report of the event appeared in the Nigerian newspaper 234Next last week Friday. Find it here. This was my first time of being published in that newspaper.

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