The Enduring Impacts of Slavery: A Historical Perspective on South–South Migration

Abstract

It is impossible to understand contemporary forms and experiences of South–South migration without first understanding the history of migration between countries generally classified as the “Global South”—the Majority World—and the enduring effects of slavery. This chapter begins with a historical overview and reflections on the present-day legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, the single largest forced migration between the countries of the Majority World, which mainly took place between countries in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Applying the “Global South” as a critical concept, this chapter examines the lasting impacts of the transatlantic enslavement of Black African peoples as a precursor of contemporary forms of South–South migration and associated responses, representation, and challenges. Arguing that much South–South migration is rooted in historical antecedents, the chapter also highlights the contemporary consequences of slavery for Liberia, where the return of captured and emancipated slaves led directly to the civil wars that devastated the country between 1989 and 2003, leading to significant displacement into other parts of West Africa.

Introduction: A Critical View of the Minority World and South–South Migration

South–South migration is not a new phenomenon. While the bulk of European’s “discovery mission” to explore, colonise, and imperialise the world was based on North–South migration, the colonial project was also executed by The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Spain, and, especially, Great Britain “using export of population [Black African human cargo] to establish its imperial hegemony” (Cohen, 1995, 10). Africans carried to Brazil came overwhelmingly from Angola. Africans carried to North America, including the Caribbean, left mainly from West Africa. These South–North (Europe to the West African coastlines) and South–South (Western African coastlines to the Caribbean and South America) migration routes categorically dehumanised mass movement for nearly 400 years during what came to be known as the transatlantic slave trade. Fuelled by the incessant drive for consumerism, wealth, and greed, trafficking of Africans as human property became entrenched (Harley, 2015; Inikori, 2020). Over the period of the transatlantic slave trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, between 11.8 and 12.5 million men, women, and children were captured and put on ships in Africa, and somewhere between 9.6 and 10.8 million arrived in the Americas.¹ These figures do not include those who were killed during the enslavement raids or those who died on their journey to the coast (Nunn, 2008). The transatlantic slave trade was likely the costliest in human life of all long-distance global migrations. Enslaved Africans were taken from African slaving coasts that stretched thousands of miles, from Senegal to Angola, and even around the Cape and on to Mozambique. Approximately half of the slaves embarked on ships in ports along the region of West Central Africa and St. Helena. Today, these regions are in the countries of Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo. The majority of the rest were taken from West Africa, embarking in ports between the present-day countries of Senegal and Gabon, while a smaller number of slaves were captured in the southeast of Africa.² Of the estimated 12.5 million human cargo plucked out of Africa between 1501 and 1866, approximately 5.8 million (46.79%) disembarked in Brazil, 5.3 million (42.45%) in the Dutch, English, and French colonies of the Caribbean Islands; one million (8.49%) in Uruguay, and 305,326 (2.44%), a relatively small percentage, in what was to become the US (SlaveVoyages Operational Committee, 2021).

These bi-directional South–South currents are haunted by grave injustices sustained by war, violence, trauma, and, in the contemporary period, the omnipresence of deadly voyages arrested by drastic border securitisation and externalisation strategies intended to curb unprecedented migration from the Majority World. Understanding the largest inter-continental South–South migration phenomenon goes well beyond the mechanics of the actual journey: it is critical for making sense of the ongoing trauma, violence, and injustices that continue to plague migrants of colour and their descendants. By contrast, the movement of (predominantly) white men from the Northern to the Southern hemispheres still thrives on post-colonial control, neoliberal ideologies and doctrines (most notably the furtherance of capitalism), the extraction industry, land dispossession and genocide of Native Peoples, Big Tech expansion, illicit small arms trade, and globalisation across economic, social, geo-political, cultural, and military spectra (Williams, 2022). Today, South–South migration, a necessary but constant flow of “neighbours” in the Majority World (Alam, 2008) is encumbered with incredulous complexities, nuances, and relevance inextricably tied to slavery and indentured labour between fourteenth and nineteenth centuries (Melde et al., 2014).

The focus of this chapter is on the history of the transatlantic slave trade and, in particular, the role of the British Empire, as well as the continuing legacy of contemporary South–South migration (Adjisse, 2022; Carpi & Owusu, 2022). The chapter begins with a historical overview and reflection on present-day legacies of the transatlantic slave trade between countries in West Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Oceania before turning to the lasting impacts of the trans-Atlantic enslavement of Black African peoples as a precursor of contemporary forms of South–South migration and associated responses, representation, challenges, and opportunities. The chapter also highlights the contemporary consequences of slavery for Liberia, where the return of captured and emancipated slaves led directly to the civil wars that devastated the country between 1989 and 2003, displacing an estimated 800,000 people internally with more than a million people travelling to neighbouring countries in West Africa in search of protection and the opportunity to rebuild their lives.

A note on terminology. In this chapter, instead of developing countries or the “Global South”, we use the term Majority World interchangeably with the South to reflect the significant proportion of the world’s population living in the Southern hemisphere, and also the fact that a significant proportion of all international migration takes place between these countries. According to the United Nations, there were 258,000 international migrants in 2017 (McAuliffe & Triandafyllidou, 2021; United Nations, 2018). In that same year, migration between the countries of the Majority World was approximately 37% of the total, and therefore higher than migration between South and North (35%) (International Organisation for Migration, 2022; see also Schewel and Debray, this volume). More migrants born in the South live elsewhere in the South (than in the North): 53% Dig down deeper and the rate increases even more: up to 79% in Middle Africa (Gagnon, 2018). Of migrants born in the Majority World, 53%, 71%, and 79% live in Africa below the Sahara (Mashanda, 2017). Similarly, rather than referring to advanced countries or the developed world, we use the term Minority World instead of North or Global North to represent countries, including Australia and New Zealand, which are economically and politically powerful but geographically located in the South.

An Overview of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Portuguese began the sale and trade in human beings in 1444, when 235 Black Africans were snatched from the west coast to be sold in Lagos, Portugal (Ames, 2018; de Zurara, 2010; Hatton, 2018). The erection of St George’s Castle (or Sao Jorge de Mina) in Cape Coast, Ghana in 1482 gave the Portuguese a monopoly over the human cargo industry in what was then Gold Coast region. Now a tourist beach resort, Lagos has nothing to commemorate the Portuguese slavers’ inhumane act, except for the Mercado de Escravos.³

While the Portuguese initiated the sale of Africans, others including the Dutch, French, Spanish, and, especially, the British, were also actively involved. Although Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade officially began with royal approval in 1663, it started 100 years earlier in 1562, when John Hawkins traded enslaved Africans for ginger and sugar in a voyage approved by Queen Elizabeth I.⁴ There was also a precursor to the British Empire’s enslavement of human beings in 1624 when 50 white settlers were transported to Barbados and the Leeward Island (Antigua, Montserrat, St. Christopher, and Nervis) as indentured labourers. The goal was to turn the islands into a profitable agrarian enterprise by growing tobacco, cotton, and a new luxury plant, sugar cane (Beckles & Downes, 1985). Although they were poor people who were treated terribly, indentured servants were not slaves. They were bonded for five years of labour and, in return, received 10 acres of land. By the 1660s, the predominantly white indentured plant servants were displaced by the relatively few Native Peoples and imported African slaves. Unlike their forerunners the white indentured labourers, Black African slaves, and their children were chattel slaves owned by their masters and never allowed to return home ever again.

The large-scale involvement of the English in the slave trade started after 1660, when King Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York (later to become King James II), helped establish a company that would control all English business in African slave trading. By 1672, it had become the Royal African Company (RAC) and its symbol was an elephant with a castle on its back. The RAC had an absolute monopoly over the “triangular route”⁵ by trading sugar from the Caribbean to England, extracting commodities from the Gold Coast, and transporting human cargo from Africa to English colonies in the Caribbean, South America, and the US (Pettigrew, 2013; Platt, 1975).

The RAC was prolific, shipping more enslaved African women, men, and children to the Americas than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade. The RAC played a central role in establishing England’s transatlantic slave trade, stealing market share from the Dutch and French slave trades, and in Africanising the populations of England’s Caribbean plantations. In 1673, soon after the company’s foundation, the English had a 33% share in the transatlantic slave trade. By 1683, that share had increased to 74% (Pettigrew, 2013, 11). Aided by the British government’s own chartered entity, the RAC’s triangular routes flourished, with the Company mounting 12,103 slaving voyages with 3,351 departing from London (Royal Museum Greenwich, 2023).

Between British ports, Africa, and the Americas, the largest cross-continental forced migration was a defining moment in history (Pettigrew, 2013; Scott, 1903). Between 1690 and 1807, an estimated 6 million enslaved Africans were transported from West Africa to the Americas on British or Anglo-American ships, with the RAC alone transporting 187,000 enslaved Africans, mostly from West Africa to its colonies in the Caribbean, South America, and the what became the US (see Table 2.1).⁶ Many of the enslaved Africans transported by the RAC were branded DY, standing for Duke of York.⁷ Notwithstanding the involvement of other European countries in the transatlantic slave trade, it is reasonable to say that the RAC perfected the act of selling Africans as disposable people in the largest South–South forced migration system.

Table 2.1 Ten enslavers journey of African human cargo

On the first leg, ships leaving Britain and other countries were filled with goods, which were exchanged for enslaved Africans on the west African coast. These people were then transported across the Atlantic to be sold as slaves to work on plantations. The same ships then returned to Europe carrying “slave grown” produce, notably sugar, tobacco, and cotton which were consumed in high volumes and fuelled the Industrial Revolution benefitting businessmen, financiers, and landowners who ran and profited from the trade, as well as businesses, workers, and consumers (Harley, 2015; UK Parliament, n.d.). The ships of the Company enjoyed the protection of the Royal Navy, and the traders made good profits. However, slavery and the triangular trade with which it was associated, did more than just create a source of free labour for Britain: it built a network of systemic exploitation that became the backbone of the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Heblich et al., 2022), and ultimately gave rise to a capitalist global economy centred on the employment of enslaved Africans in large-scale commodity production in what was come to be known as the US (Inikori, 2020; Williams, 1994).

The transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity and arguably represented a genocide (Cooper, 2012). Unable to continue the enslavement of Indigenous Peoples in their new colonies owing to disease, famine, and conflict, European settler-colonists turned to Black African slaves to feed their compulsion for economic wealth. This wealth and power would never be shared with the source, enslaved Africans. In fact, after the transportation of human cargo was abolished in England with the enactment of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, an audacious compensation scheme was lavished on slave owners for losing their property. Some 46,000 slave owners, including relatives of John Gladstone, father of Victorian prime minister William Ewart Gladstone and Charles Blair, the great-grand father of Eric Blair (George Orwell), who was paid £4,442 (equivalent to about £3 m today), all walked away with the biggest bailout in British history (Olusoga, 2015).⁸ While British slavers received a significant amount of money for losing their human chattel property, not a single penny was paid to those who had been enslaved (Olusoga, 2015). It should also be noted that while the abolition of slavery in 1807 eventually ended the human cargo business and the act of slavery itself in 1834 (Equiano, 1789; Turner, 1982), what immediately ensued was an institution of indenture or bonded labour migration (Anderson, 2009). Between 1834 and 1917, another long-term contractual South–South migration resulted in an estimated 2.0–2.2 million Africans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Javanese, and Melanesians being transported to British, Dutch, French, and Spanish colonies including Fiji, Hawa’ii, Samoa, Tahiti, Vanuatu, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion, Suriname, Trinidad, Guyana, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Peru, and Mexico (Allen, 2017; Ramsarran, 2008; Tinker, 1993).

The Legacy of Slavery

The legacy of the slave trade pervades almost every aspect of contemporary life and is central to understanding contemporary South–South migration flows, and the experiences of those who move between the countries of the Majority World.

First, there was the impact on the countries to which slaves were shipped, especially Brazil, which remain deeply racialised even today (de Souza e Silva et al., this volume). Alongside Great Britain, the Portuguese empire shipped the highest number of slaves from Africa, and Brazil was the main destination. Once in Brazil, many slaves were forced to work on sugar fazendas (plantations) geared towards export-based markets and their work was difficult, demanding, and coercive. They were utterly dehumanised and treated as a community to be bought and sold. When slavery was eventually abolished in Brazil in 1888, far later than any other country in the Americas, the lives of Afro-Brazilians did not change drastically. Many freed slaves entered into informal agreements with their former owners, exchanging free labour in return for food and shelter. Meanwhile, white Brazilian elites, concerned they could become a minority, also implemented a policy of branqueamento, or “whitening”, through European immigration which aimed to limpar o sangue (cleanse the blood) (dos Santos & Hallewell, 2002). This was justified on the grounds that Brazil could not flourish with a largely black population, a legacy that continues today through deeply racialised institutional structures and attitudes prevalent throughout contemporary Brazilian society.⁹

The ongoing impacts of the slave trade on countries in the Americas are highlighted by Engerman and Sokoloff (1997), who argue that differences in factor endowments implied differences in the reliance on slave labour, with dramatic consequences for the degree of inequality. Bertocchi (2016) also notes the work of Soares et al. (2012) who found a significant correlation between past slavery and current levels of inequality across a world-wide sample of 46 countries which included North-African and Southern-European recipients of African slaves. Bertocchi (2016) argues that the extreme historical inequalities—in wealth, human capital, and political power—associated with the slave trade exerted a permanent influence on economic development, since they favoured the endogenous formation of institutional structures that, rather than promoting growth, maintained the privileges of the elites against the interests of the masses. In Brazil, there continue to be widespread human rights abuses towards Afro-Brazilians and Black migrants, with poverty rates twice those of white Brazilians.¹⁰

The ongoing impacts of the slave trade are nowhere more apparent than in Haiti. First claimed by Spain in 1492 when Christopher Columbus landed on the island in search of spices, the country was ceded to France in 1665. The colonial economy of Saint-Domingue was based almost entirely on the production of plantation crops for export. Enslaved African slaves grew sugar in the northern plains around Cap Français, for example, and coffee in the mountainous interior. The slave system in Saint-Domingue was regarded as one of the harshest in the Americas, with high levels of both mortality and violence. To supply the plantation system, French owners imported an estimated 800,000 Africans to the colony (which, by comparison, is almost double the number of Africans carried to North America). Under French rule, Saint-Domingue grew to be the wealthiest colony in the French empire and, perhaps, the richest colony in the world, producing around 40% of the sugar and 60% of the coffee imported into Europe.

One of the most notable aspects of Haitian history is that the nation is the only one to have emerged as the result of a successful slave rebellion. From 1791 through 1804, enslaved people and their allies in Saint-Domingue fought a protracted revolution to win their independence from France. However, after securing independence and abolishing slavery, Haiti was severely punished by the international community and forced to make huge debt repayments to France, pushing the country into a cycle of debt that hobbled its development for more than 100 years. Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. In Haiti the opposite has occurred, i.e., Haiti, a nation of slaves and the ancestors of slaves, has had to pay the enslavers. Once the wealthiest colony in the Americas, Haiti is now the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, with more than half of its population living below the World Bank’s poverty line.¹¹

Secondly, the slave trade had devastating—and enduring—impacts on the places in Africa from where slaves were taken, with implications for contemporary forms of South–South migration associated with both poverty and conflict. Slavery led to the transformation of entire economic, political, and legal systems in the areas of West Africa now known as Ghana,¹² Senegal (Fofana, 2020), and Nigeria.¹³ Some states, such as Asante and Dahomey, grew powerful and wealthy as a result. Other states were completely destroyed, and their populations decimated as they were absorbed by rivals. Millions of Africans were forcibly removed from their homes, and towns and villages were depopulated. Generally, the consequence of internal conflict was increased political instability and in many cases the collapse of pre-existing forms of government (Lovejoy, 2000). According to Nunn (2008), the Portuguese slave trade was a key factor leading to the eventual disintegration of the Joloff Confederation in Northern Senegambia and also led to the weakening and eventual fall of the once powerful Kongo kingdom of West-Central Africa. Pre-existing governance structures were generally replaced by small bands of slave raiders, controlled by an established ruler or warlord. However, these bands were generally unable to develop into large, stable states (Nunn, 2008).

Evidence from research on the relationship between a country’s history of slavery and subsequent economic performance suggests that these effects of the slave trades may be important for current economic development (Chanda & Putterman, 2005; Nunn, 2008). As noted by Whatley (2022), recent econometric research has found recurring evidence that the international slave trades underdeveloped Africa over the long term, an idea most closely associated with Walter Rodney and his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Rodney, 1972). Whatley (2022) finds that the international slave trades encouraged decentralised African societies in catchment zones to adopt slavery as a defence against further enslavement. Moreover, fears of being captured and being enslaved led to significant migration due to insecurity, which in turn weakened agricultural production, the mainstay of many African economies at that time. Robbing African countries of their much-needed labour force by taking men and women at their prime and productive age not only affected the economic activities at that time but has been held responsible for the poverty experienced in the continent subsequently. Historical accounts suggest that the pervasive insecurity, violence, and warfare had detrimental impacts on the institutional, social, and economic development of societies (Nunn, 2008). In addition, it has been suggested that the slave trades may have generated a culture of mistrust, because of the way slaves were captured by other Africans through raids involving neighbouring communities, thus breaking the social bonds upon which trust is built (Bertocchi, 2016; Nunn, 2008). Because the slave trades weakened ties between villages, they also discouraged the formation of larger communities and broader ethnic identities. Therefore, the slave trades may be an important factor explaining Africa’s high level of ethnic fractionalisation today (Nunn, 2008), and the conflicts and associated migration flows with which this has been associated.

It is clear then that the transatlantic slave trade has contributed both directly and indirectly to contemporary forms of migration in Africa associated with poverty and conflict. Slavery radically impaired Africa’s potential to develop economically and maintain its social and political stability (M’baye, 2006). Indeed, “the coerced population movement set into place by the trans-Atlantic slave trade was only the beginning of a very long mobilization process that has not yet stopped” (Bertocchi, 2016).

Slavery and the Protracted Displacement of Liberians in West Africa

We contextualise this chapter by focusing on a much-neglected and little understood nexus between the transatlantic slave trade and South–South migration: that of the protracted displacement of literally millions of people both inside and outside the small West African country of Liberia.

The conflict that led Liberians to flee to Ghana and other West African countries began in December 1989 but had its roots in the transatlantic slave trade and the formation of Liberia itself (Crawley & Fynn Bruey, 2022; Dick, 2002; Hampshire et al., 2008; Omata, 2012). Liberia was birthed out of the need to address the perceived “problem” of freed slaves being placed on the same legal equality with White people in the US following the abolition of slavery in 1819. Between 1820 and 1904 nearly 15,000 former slaves were returned from the US to the Colony of Liberia, marking a period of forced migration back to West Africa from the Americas. In 1847, the settlers signed a declaration of independence marking Liberia as the oldest republic in Africa. However, this did not mean that all people in the republic enjoyed the same rights and privileges. On the contrary, the former slave returnees—the so-called Americo-Liberians—who comprised less than 1% of Liberia’s population ruled the nation as quasi-imperial masters until 1980, selectively manipulating the customs and traditions of the Indigenous Peoples to gain and reinforce their own control of Liberia’s land, resources, and people. While in England ancestors of slavers are members of the House of Lords (Lashmar and Smith, 2020; Syal, 2020), in Liberia they are warlords turned into Supreme Court Justices and legislators (Fynn Bruey, 2018).

The consequences of this legacy of slavery ripple through into Liberia’s more recent history of conflict and displacement. The two civil wars that devastated Liberia between 1989 and 2003 were rooted in a power struggle between former slave returnees from the US and various Indigenous groups, most of which had been excluded from participating in the state-building and development after the country was founded. In 1980, Samuel Doe, a junior level Indigenous military officer, led a successful military coup and overthrew the Americo-Liberian regime. During his presidency, Doe gave virtually all positions of power to people from his own Krahn language group and maltreated most other Indigenous groups (Frontani et al., 2009) and several further coup d’état attempts in the 1980s led to widespread civil conflict throughout the country. In 1989 Charles Taylor, an Americo-Liberian, formerly in Doe’s government, overthrew Doe from his base in Côte d’Ivoire. At the beginning of the civil war, Taylor’s regime targeted the Krahn and Mandingo Peoples who were viewed as Doe-supporters resulting in a civil war which lasted until 1996 when there was temporary peace that allowed for the 1997 elections. The elections resulted in Taylor’s victory but fighting continued until 2003 (Dick, 2002; Hampshire et al., 2008).

A peace agreement, Taylor’s resignation and exile to Nigeria in 2003 led to the United Nations declaring Liberia safe in 2004 and the onset of repatriation initiatives. However, the consequences of the conflict, as well as the longer history of forced migration, the violence, and the widespread inequalities with which the civil war was associated, linger on. By the official end of Liberia’s war in 2003, an estimated 250,000 people had been killed and around half of the country’s population of 2.8 million had been displaced. Approximately 800,000–1 million people were displaced within the country (Dick, 2002; UNHCR, 2006; Wyndham, 2006) and over a million people became refugees (Nmona, 1996; UNHCR, 2006). The scale of displacement in Liberia reflects its use as a deliberate tactic during the conflict (Dabo, 2012). But the Liberian conflict is not only notable for the scale of the violence and the fact that the casualties were often civilians: there were also particular impacts for specific groups of civilians. While its scale is contested (Cohen & Green, 2012), there is evidence that rates of rape and sexual violence against women and girls were very high (Jones et al., 2014; Swiss et al., 1998).¹⁴

Liberians began entering Ghana as refugees in mid- to late-1990, shortly after the outbreak of the civil war, choosing Ghana for its general stability, reasonable economy, and the widespread use of English. Others fled to different countries in the region including neighbouring Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire, all of which experienced significant internal and external displacement due to conflict occurring between 1991–2002, 2002–2004, and 2010–2011. Liberians were initially brought to Ghana by air and sea, with navy ships and merchant vessels cooperating with the military branch of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to bring refugees en masse (Dick, 2002). As noted by Dick (2002), the majority of refugees represented the average Liberian, but a substantial number of the initial arrivals were younger, well-educated, urban-based professionals from Liberia’s capital of Monrovia or surrounding communities. By August 1990 the Ghanaian government set up an ad hoc Committee on Refugees in response to the arrival of an increasing number of Liberian refugees and agreed to use the abandoned church premises of Gomoa Buduburam in the Central Region of Ghana. Located in an agricultural settlement about an hour’s drive east of Accra, the Buduburam Refugee Camp served as a reception centre for accommodating the influx of Liberian refugees. In September 1990, there were around 7,000 Liberians at Buduburam with a further 2,000 leaving the facility and self-settling in and around the Greater Accra region or communities nearby the Central Region (Dick, 2002). A decade later the number of Liberians living in Ghana had increased to around 42,000 living in three major refugee camps, the biggest of which was at Buduburam (Agblorti, 2011; Dako-Gyeke & Adu, 2017; Dick, 2002). Today, Liberians continue to live in Ghana and other parts of West Africa in a state of protracted displacement.

Conclusions

The transatlantic enslavement was a devastating cross-continental trade in human beings between the countries of the Majority World. Its impact continues to haunt descendants, traumatise families, racialise Black Africans, and destablise communities across the globe. It has also led directly to violent conflicts such as that in Liberia which have driven intra-regional South–South migration. Moreover, putting an end to transatlantic enslavement was not the end of African oppression from European slavers. In fact, the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1807 gave rise to the dawn of the “Scramble for Africa” (Carmody, 2011; Chamberlain, 1974). Barely eight decades later, on 15 November 1884, 14 European countries and the US gathered in Germany for the Berlin Conference, the aim of which was to manage the continuous destruction of the fabric of Indigenous Africa (Craven, 2015; Stone, 1988). The continuity of oppressive European colonial stronghold on Africa which is strongly tied to violent conflict and poor governance as the impetus for (intra-regional) South–South forced migration is evident on a daily basis. The implications of colonialism for migration are well documented, not only in terms of the movement of people within and between the countries of the Majority World (see Bonayi and Soumahoro, this volume), but also in terms of migration law and policy (Mayblin and Turner, 2021) and the ways in which knowledge about migration is produced (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Landström and Crawley, Vanyaro, Phipps and Yohannes, this volume).

Finally, it is important to acknowledge the slave trade’s “legacy of racism” which continues to haunt the world to this day and can be seen in contemporary forms of racism in both the Majority and Minority Worlds. Racial difference was invoked to justify the slave trade. As the trade grew, and Europe became wealthy, so too did theories about racialised hierarchies, Eugenics, and the equation between intellectual abilities and the subjugation of Africans (Jones, 2015; Otele, 2017).¹⁵ As noted by Jones (2015), for example, “the colonial past is always present in Caribbean societies. It resonates in popular images of gender, race, class and sexuality, and discrimination on all of these grounds persists”. Whiteness continues to signal social and cultural capital to this day, as evidenced by the concentration of white and lighter skinned people within the elite. According to UN chief Antonio Guterres, “[w]e can draw a straight line from the centuries of colonial exploitation to the social and economic inequalities of today…and we can recognize the racist tropes popularised to rationalise the inhumanity of the slave trade in the white supremacist hate that is resurgent today”.¹⁶ This, as much as anything else, confirms the need for a historical perspective on South–South migration, one which acknowledges the enduring legacy of slavery.