Quizila: African Ritual Power and the Slave Trade in West Central Africa

This presentation seizes upon the concept of quizila – the ritual interdiction that forbade African rulers from coming close to the ocean – to develop a new theory about African sovereignty at the height of abolition in mid-nineteenth century West Central Africa. The suppression of the transatlantic slave trade unfolded against the backdrop of fierce competition by multiple emerging and established imperial powers along the African coast, including not only the British and the Portuguese but also France and the United States. It seriously impacted the internal politics of the Kingdom of Kongo just as that African polity wrestled with a succession crisis in the 1850s. By discussing the interplay of trade networks and political power in Africa, the presentation seeks to reorient the historiography of abolition away from the current focus on state and economic actors. A case study of the ritual constitution of power in Cabinda – the thriving coastal port of the Ngoyo kingdom – will provide lenses to examine the impact of abolition in West Central Africa.