The burden of memory: Oral and material evidence of human kidnapping for enslavement and resistance strategies among the Bulsa and Kasena of Ghana

Abstract

European narratives about the slave trade in Africa has often attempted to underestimate, overlook or sometimes forget completely the role of African indigenous resistance to human kidnapping for enslavement. This paper examines ways in which the Bulsa and Kasena in northern Ghana were under the constant threats of enslavement and how they adapted and resisted the threats of violence and enslavement by exploiting their unique landscape and topography, local architecture and flight as strategies against captivity from slave raiders.Drawing from field work through recording of songs and oral accounts, the paper contributes to the broader discussion of the transatlantic European designed slave trade within the historiography on how communities who were devastated by the threats of violence and human kidnapping for enslavement continue to relive events of the past. The paper reveals that individual and communal flight from slave raiders as well as exploitation of the landscape and their building patterns reveal a compelling story about a people who do not always want to be perceived as victims, but as agents in reconstructing a narrative of endurance, skill, ingenuity and toughness. That is, although human raiding and threats of enslavement threatened their central communality and tampered with group cohesion, these communities still managed to adapt to their plight by devising strategies that sought to keep them safe, secure and helped to ensure their survival.