"Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe and aren't even aware of..." Ellen Goodman's survey of tradition's persuasiveness could not be truer of the Ibo culture and the African slave trade with regards to British influence. Clearly, the Ibo people instinctively held closely to their customs in reaction to English presence; plausibly, their intent in so doing was to hold as closely as possible to their status quo. Remarkably enough, their true effect was the facilitation, not prevention, both of the British slave trade in the mid-eighteenth century and of British colonization in the late nineteenth century. As the Ibo provided this ingress for "the white man" to gain power on African land, the Ibo people had some choices to be made that would definitively shape their chi, or destiny. To be sure, the story of Olaudah Equiano as well as Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart provides evidence contrary to the common conception of the superior British strong-arming the inferior Africans to the point of submission. Specifically, both accounts show intelligent African societies making reasoned

This made Africans not only victims but also active agents in the economy of trading fellow Africans as slaves. However, the "fellow Africans" that these slave-trading blacks were capturing were not considered at all fellow. Tribes just miles away from each other would regard one another as hostile or as foreign as would any clan regarding white men. Different languages, gods, and customs prevented almost all connection between African tribes, whose only commonality may merely have been the color of their skin.

With regard to the African slave trade, it is important to understand that there was indeed a logical rationale for African agency against fellow African; converse to a popular perception, British slave traders did not simply force the Ibo people into submission. The British slave traders had neither the resources nor the manpower to battle the African warriors to submission. They simply did not need to do so. The British used the power of politics to fulfill the wants of the cooperating Africans, while simultaneously accomplishing their own goals. Essentially, both the cooperating Ibo tribes and the slave traders capitalized on mutual preferences. Both parties wanted the surrounding clans gone; such common ground allowed both factions the manifestation of their shared want.

British slave traders capitalized upon the rivalries amongst the numerous and highly competitive political entities of eighteenth-century Africa with the purpose of capturing slaves. Values, preferences, and national identity were set on very narrow scopes throughout Ibo society. Equiano aptly describes this, stating "the manners and government of a people who have little commerce with other countries are generally very simple, and the history of what passes in one family or village may serve as a specimen of the whole nation" (Equiano, 19). The British slave traders took advantage of such localized identity, as they never were obliged to confront an entity larger than their own small contingency. Small coastal tribes like the Oyo and the Aro, the traders' first African contacts, were given the privileged choice to cooperate with the British. They obliged, partially in return for the trinkets that th

Some common words found in the essay are:
Dissent Ibo, Fall Apart, Ibo Africans, Nonetheless Ibo, Ellen Goodman's, Africa Achebe, Ibo Christian, Oyo Aro, British Ibo, Little Ibo, ibo people, slave traders, nineteenth century, british slave, slave trade, british slave traders, ibo culture, british colonization, late nineteenth, ibo society, ibo societies, late nineteenth century, african slave trade, slave traders capitalized, nineteenth century ibo,
Approximate Word count = 1492
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)