Slavery, we know, has left a hole in the hearts of African Americans. But it has also had the most devastating effects on the African societies left behind. Does this legacy haunt Africa today? For even while guilt itself is not heritable, could it be that the consequences of that guilt somehow persist? How can a society expiate such sins of the fathers? These are the thoughts, this is the despair, that I suppress when thinking about the history of the slave trade, and the centrality of black African involvement in it.