African states pushing for reparations for Enslavement is diluting our reparations claim.

Participation Is Not the Same as Equal Profit

There is a basic logical problem in discussions about African participation in the Atlantic slave trade: unequal profit does not erase participation.

Nobody has to argue that African states benefited as much as European empires. They clearly did not. But many African rulers, merchants, and political entities captured, purchased, and sold human beings to European traders. Europeans did not introduce the basic institution of slavery to societies where slavery had never existed; they entered existing systems of enslavement and captive trading, then transformed and expanded them through the enormous demands of the Atlantic plantation economy.

Saying, “But Europe became rich while Africa was devastated,” answers a different question.

Imagine I steal your car and sell it for $5,000. The buyer uses that car to start a taxi company that eventually generates $500,000 a year. He made vastly more money than I did.

Does that mean I didn’t participate?

Of course not.

And suppose that taxi company eventually becomes so powerful that it restructures my neighborhood, destroys my livelihood, and I ultimately lose my own house. My eventual loss still doesn’t erase my original participation.

That’s the distinction being ignored.

African participation does not mean equal African responsibility. African profit does not mean equal African profit. And Africa’s eventual devastation does not retroactively eliminate the agency of the rulers and merchants who participated.

The real historical difference is scale, power, downstream accumulation, and institutional continuity.

We can acknowledge that difference without rewriting one side out of the transaction.