I was  at an American Anglican conference this weekend attended by 
representatives of  the Anglican Church of Kenya and the Anglican Church of Uganda.  
Both Anglican  churches have upcoming ordinations to the  episcopate in the 
United  States.  One of the conferees was a professor of history at Uganda 
Christian University.  I enjoyed the Christian fellowship I  shared with my black 
African brothers in Christ. 
During social/cocktail hour (we are all Episcopalians after all) I had  
occasion to sit with some of the African attendees and raised a number of the  
issues that have been discussed in this forum on slavery in Virginia and the  
United States, slavery reparations, etc.  I found the discussion very 
enlightening. 
I was  made aware that the enslavement and trading in black Africans took 
place for  untold centuries before the first European showed up.  Black Africans 
owning and trading in  black African slaves was a well established institution 
for hundreds of years  prior to the Portugese stepping ashore.  In fact, 
African slavery in Virginia for 200 years was merely a short  “snapshot” in the 
long history of African slavery. 
European countries engaged in slavery, rejected it, and outlawed slave  
ownership and the slave trade.  The  United States followed, and  later Cuba and  
Brazil finally put an end to the  slave trade as well. 
However, the African slave trade continued to thrive in Africa even after 
trading with the western cultures  ended.  Why?  Because Black Africans continued 
to buy  and trade Black African Slaves.  
This  slave culture in Africa didn’t begin to end  until ……….European 
colonization.  First the Christian missionaries, and then the colonial governments  
forced the Africans to stop enslaving and trading in their black African  “
brothers and sisters.”  Were it not  for European colonialization, black African 
slavery and trading might continue  to this day (although it apparently still 
does exist in parts of sub-Sahara  Africa). 
As to  black African slaves who went from enslavement in African to Virginia 
and the  new world, the consensus I got from all in the discussion was that 
they were the  lucky ones.  Compared to the  conditions and treatment of African 
slaves in African, American slaves were  living at the Four Seasons. 
J  South



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