Dr. Robert Watson of Hampton University  used an interactive slide presentation to facilitate a conversation with seminarians about West Africa and its people.

     The slave trade operated from Senegal in West Africa to Angola, a distance of about 3,500 miles, to a distance of 300 miles from the coast into the interior.   While some Africans may have been brought from other regions, the documentation and geographic location points to the West Coast as the primary place of export of Africans to the new world.
 

    The people who lived in the West Coast of Africa from 14th  -17th century had experience in  producing mass amounts of agricultural products.  They arrived at their destination empty handed, but not empty headed, and they used their knowledge to adapt to their new surroundings.  The retention of Africanisms in culture  is a legacy of this knowledge.
 

    The discussion included differences between slavery in Africa and the Americas.  With the caveat that all slavery anywhere is wrong, Dr. Watson listed some differences:

• African slavery was not chattel slavery.
• It did not strip humanity from individual.
• It was not generational in bonding - the next generation was not automatically enslaved..
• Some enslavement done by individuals to pay a debt.
• Not based on race.
• Possibility of upward mobility and freedom.
• Closer to slavery in antiquity than American slavery.

• Melville Herskovits - The Myth of the Negro Past
  
  
• SANKOFA is a powerful film about Maafa-the African holocaust. Done from an African/African-American perspective, this story is a vastly different one from the generally distorted representations of African people that Hollywood gives us.
  
  
• The Life of Olaudah Equiano
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• John Hope Franklin -  From Slavery to Freedom - Chapter Three