THERE is a resounding call for the rewriting of history surrounding the transatlantic trade in Africans, particularly regarding the argument that Africans were allies/business partners with the European colonisers.

Jamaican scholars and a visiting high-level delegation of royal African leaders joined in one unified voice on Thursday in calling for a change in the skewed transatlantic slave trade narrative and sought to debunk myths which they say have been promulgated by European scholars.

According to the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), traders and their allies, during the Western campaign in the 19th century to legalise the transatlantic trade in Africans, argued that African commercial and political interests were their business partners.

This perspective has gained global traction, becoming the dominant narrative. This is particularly the case in the Caribbean and the Americas, where it is now commonly believed that African elites were significant partners in European trading in Africans in Africa, the CRC said.

The commission said the evidence to debunk this narrative and to contextualise its significance is considerable, though it has not gained anywhere near the level of advocacy and academic representation.

Speaking at a symposium hosted by the CRC at the regional headquarters of The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, Princess Nikiwe Bam, Mpondomise Nation, Ngxabane clan charged young scholars/historians to take on this history rewrite.

“Our history has been written by the same colonisers and invaders. You have a task to rewrite this history and preserve it for the next generations to come,” she said.

Princess Bam questioned how European scholars could go to study Africa then return with a book about the indigenous peoples’ own history, stressing that, contrary to what is written in those history books, “our kings would never have given away their own people to the whites or to the colonisers”.

She noted that when the European invaders came to Africa to enslave the people the powerful kings, who were the main targets, “resisted with everything that they had”, with most being killed, captured, or exiled.

The princess pointed out as well that the invaders took advantage of conflicting factions in Africa, stating that the colonisers were good at causing conflicts within the royal families to weaken them “and started to negotiate with one party so that they can advance that part with the guns and other equipment to defeat the other party because they also had an agenda, which was stealing the land. They also captured our African people as slaves”, adding that some of those captured were used under duress to do the work for the British colonies.

Princess Bam stressed that “[we need to] dig deeper into our history and rewrite and retell the stories so that we can tell it more accurately”.

In joining the push for a new narrative on the transatlantic trade in Africans, president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and member of the National Committee on Reparations Steven Golding said the committee is invested in making this happen.

He noted that since last year the body has been having a series of consultations with the Ministry of Education and Youth to “empower teachers to begin to change the narrative in our curriculum that has been handed down for so many generations”.

“Very simple things like discontinuing the use of the word slave, replacing it with enslaved,” he said, and also suggested that the word Maroon, which means “wild and untamed”, also be changed, as this group represents African kingdoms.