Ideology versus the Tyranny of Paradigm: Historians and the Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on African Societies

Abstract

A11l practitioners of the historical sciences will agree that our discipline thrives on controversy. Hence no historian can be a stranger to controversy.Yet it may be valid to say that the historiography of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery contains elements of controversy that are to a certain degree unique. These unique elements derive from the ease with which participants in the debates charge each other with ideology. The phenomenon may be attributed to the ideological developments associated with the history of the European slave trade and African slavery in the Atlantic world. In the first place, the presence of a large number of oppressed and degraded Africans in the western hemisphere gave rise to a profound racist ideology that was unprecedented in human history and whose legacy has remained with the world ever since. Second, the unthinkable magnitude of inhumanity associated with the Atlantic slave trade and slavery has remained a major blot on the history of human civilization. It is understandable, therefore, that no one would be glad to be held responsible for something that shames the world, or to be shown to have benefited from it. There is thus a fertile ground for suspicion between scholars of European origin, on the one hand, and those of African descent on the other. Given this fertile ground, it is extraordinarily easy for some participants in the debate to invoke ideology. Hence, charges of ideology are sometimes substituted for serious scholarly investigation. While sentimental considerations may have contributed somewhat to the degree of controversy surrounding the subject, I contend that conceptual confusion and paradigm limitations are principally responsible. On the African side of the subject, all scholars in the debate attempt ultimately to contribute directly or indirectly to the issue of whether or not the Atlantic slave trade was a factor in the historical process that produced the current economic underdevelopment in tropical Africa.This central concern certainly requires sufficient exposure to analytical tools relevant to the study of long-term economic development and structural change, which is the central focus of underdevelopment and dependency theory.Yet there is clear evidence in the literature that many participants in the debate are wholly innocent of such tools and frequently operate with paradigms that are inappropriate for the