President John Mahama has asserted that the transatlantic slave trade was deliberately designed to dehumanise Africans, emphasising that the system was rooted in misguided beliefs of racial superiority.
He made the statement during a United Nations event commemorating slavery at the UN Headquarters on Tuesday, March 24, 2026.
The Ghanaian leader suggested that the historical narrative of slavery requires revision, particularly in regard to the terminology used to describe it.
“The entire transatlantic slave trade was designed to deny African people their humanity,” he said, adding that the system was rooted in a racial hierarchy “with no basis in fact or science” that placed whiteness above blackness.
He noted that the use of the term “slave” itself risks erasing the identity and dignity of those who were subjected to the system.
“There is no such thing as a slave. There were human beings who were trafficked and then enslaved,” he said.
“Not if you acknowledge an individual’s humanity and respect their basic rights to dignity.”
According to President Mahama, the atrocities committed during the period and the inequalities that followed were made possible because enslaved Africans were considered objects instead of being regarded as humans.
The president urged a shift in global discourse, calling for conversations about slavery to start with restoring African dignity and recognising the humanity of its victims.
“The injustices that were born of slavery and carried forward into successive social systems took place because those persons were considered objects, not human beings,” he added.
“When discussing slavery and its consequences, we must always start by reclaiming the dignity of Africans, the humanity of our ancestors who were enslaved, and, as a matter of course, our own humanity,” he said.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
