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With regard to reparations, I wonder if Chad, Cameroon and Sudan would be asked to pay reparations for extracting so many slaves from the Central African Republic. The entire eastern half of the country is very lightly populated today because of the slave raids from Sudan and even from Dar al-Kuti within the area of the CAR itself. Which African countries would pay reparations for the purchase of Japanese slaves by African mariners? If Portuguese mariners purchasing slaves in Japan were guilty of crimes against humanity (and they certainly were) then were the African mariners on the same ships guilty of the same, since they purchased slaves in Japan for themselves and to sell? The color of one’s skin does not make one more or less inclined to purchase slaves. Would India be asked to pay for the importation of so many African slaves? Would any countries be struck off the list of those who should pay reparations because they helped end the slave trade? Or do no one but Africans get credit for helping to end the horrible trade? Several years ago a student of mine in Cameroon, a Fulbe woman, was talking to me about how reparations should paid by the US, and she was from a wealthy family in Adamawa, whose Fulbe cavalry raided for slaves in western CAR. I pointed out that my ancestors were indentured servants and my grandparents were poor anti-slavery Quaker sharecroppers in Virginia, and that my father fought against discrimination his whole life. My student seemed to have forgotten the part her own ancestors played in the slave trade, and for slaves used in Nigeria, and she seemed surprised to learn that there were Quakers strongly opposed to the slave trade in Virginia, and who helped to end the slave trade. Her ancestors, in contrast, profited from the slave trade. Many of these slaves were sold in Nigeria, and some were used on plantations. Should Nigeria pay reparations to the CAR, for creating a strong demand for slaves which the Fulbe of Adamawa, among others, supplied? Should my family pay reparations when generations of my ancestors and my grandparents on down have been strongly opposed to slavery, agitated for its end, and then fought for civil rights for people regardless of color, religion, or sex? Should women around the world get reparations for the "imbalances" that they have had to deal with for so long in so many parts of the world, including Africa and America? Doesn’t the historical evidence make it clear that people of all shades of skin color and from many countries in Africa as well as elsewhere contributed to the horrors of the slave trade, and that people from many countries in Africa and from many countries around the world fought hard to end it?
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