Appolonia: the story of an African kingdom that resisted the Atlantic slave trade

The transatlantic slave trade was a multilayered, highly commercialised global enterprise that lasted from the early 1500s to the mid 1800s.

The events over this period are far too complex to fit into a straightforward perpetrator-victim narrative. While the trade catastrophically dehumanised and commodified over 12.5 million Africans, it was not just an external conquest.

Europeans lacked the geographical knowledge, immunity to endemic tropical diseases, and the military power to venture into the African interior. So they became dependent on African states and merchant elites for the supply of captives.

By controlling coastal ports, regulating market access, and managing the interior trade routes that brought captives to the coast, these African brokers enabled and shaped the European trade in human beings.

Yet, this internal participation was rarely uniform. While certain powerful African societies and groups largely procured captives from weaker communities through warfare or raids, a few centralised African states chose neither to fully participate in nor completely abstain from the slave trade.

One such society was the Kingdom of Appolonia (today known as the Nzema State) in the southwestern Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). Throughout the four centuries of Atlantic slavery, Appolonia traded only 352 captives while other Gold Coast towns like Elmina and Cape Coast each shipped hundreds of thousands of enslaved people.

As a historian of west Africa, particularly Ghana, specialising in environmental and water history as well as the slave trade, I have spent nearly a decade researching Appolonia's role in the Atlantic slave trade. My recent study reveals that Appolonia was the only port region on the Gold Coast where the Atlantic slave trade did not thrive, although indigenous African slavery was practised in the kingdom. Appolonia stands out as a statistical and geographical outlier within the slave trade economy.

Appolonia's story raises several critical questions. Why did the kingdom trade so few enslaved people? Why is it important to study regions of Africa where the slave trade was less dominant? And what do outliers like Appolonia teach us about historical and reparative justice?

Appolonia in historical context

Appolonia is an Akan society in southwestern Ghana, located at the border with Côte d'Ivoire. The Portuguese named this region after Saint Appolonia, an Egyptian Christian virgin, because they discovered the area on her festival day.

The region was made up of small villages that came together to establish the Appolonian Kingdom in the late 1600s. It was here that Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was born in 1909.

The founding of the Appolonian Kingdom coincided with other grand historical developments on the Gold Coast. These include the rise of the Asante Kingdom to superpower status and the transformation of the region into a centre for the Atlantic slave trade.

These events drew Appolonia into the larger Atlantic economy. However, Appolonia was probably the only Gold Coast society that effectively said “no” to the Atlantic slave trade.

Saying “no” did not mean a complete abstinence. The 352 enslaved individuals that Appolonia shipped account for 0.0028% of the Africans transported across the Atlantic Ocean. My intention is not to reduce these precious lives to mere statistics. Rather, I aim to show that, in percentage terms, Appolonia's involvement in the trade was minimal.

To illustrate this point, let's examine some comparative data.

The table displays slave exports from various regions of the Gold Coast. This information was obtained from the SlaveVoyages database, compiled over decades by various researchers in an international collaborative effort. It offers statistics on enslaved individuals shipped from Africa and those who survived the journey.

For instance, in the 18th-century Gold Coast, port towns like Anomabo recorded 168,348 slave exports, Cape Coast 100,434 and Elmina 85,636 – compared with Appolonia's 352.

Consider the figures alongside the historical population densities of these areas.

During the 1700s, Anomabu had approximately 8,750 inhabitants; yet a staggering 168,348 captives were shipped from there. This indicates significant slave trading. Similarly, Cape Coast and Elmina had projected populations of around 5,000 and 25,000 residents, yet recorded high slave exports.

Appolonia, on the other hand, had an estimated population of 15,600-19,600 inhabitants but traded only 352.

What this means

Why did Appolonia trade so few enslaved people? Using demographic database analysis, European archival records, and oral histories, my research suggests two main reasons.

First, Appolonia was not a slaving society. Its economy depended rather on the gold and ivory trade.

Second, the kingdom implemented policies, such as the amonle covenant, that prevented the sale of Appolonian subjects. Amonle was a sacred ritual involving human sacrifice of Appolonian royals and the mixing of their blood with a special herbal concoction. It was then drunk by both Appolonian rulers and migrants who settled in the kingdom.

This powerful ritual served as the binding oath against selling Appolonian locals and refugees, cursing anyone who broke the oath. This policy undermined any internal system for producing enslaved people within the kingdom for sale.

The question of reparations

Appolonia's story further complicates our understanding and approach to seeking historical justice and reparations for the slave trade. It is one thing for a known victim to demand justice and reparations from an identifiable perpetrator, whether through symbolic acts like an apology, or through monetary compensation.

It's a different matter when the identities of both the victim and the perpetrator are unknown – or when the perpetrator and the victim are one and the same. Who dispenses reparations to whom?

In the case of Appolonia, we do not know the identities of the 352 victims exported, nor have scholars, including myself, been able to trace these captives to a specific African homeland.

We have not found historical records indicating that the people of Appolonia captured or purchased these individuals for resale. Given this context, should Appolonia be expected to offer reparations? If yes, to whom?

Conversely, is it ethically justifiable for Appolonia to seek reparative justice from the unknown Europeans who purchased the 352 captives?

Appolonia's story complicates the call for reparative justice. However, it does not contradict the landmark March 2026 United Nations resolution officially declaring the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity”. For the slave trade is indeed the most violent and catastrophic of the many atrocities committed against Africans and African descended people.

Nana Kesse receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright-Hays program, Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, and the Otumfuo Education Fund.

By Nana Kesse, Assistant Professor of History, Clark University

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