Slavery in My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

One thing that was particularly hard for me to grasp as an American reader was the way that slavery was presented in this novel. In American culture, slavery is inseparable from racism. In My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, slavery is not explicitly racial- in fact, not only is the narrator purchased by another African, but the man in question is his own brother. This does not by any means make slavery more acceptable, but it may help explain why he is able to quickly forgive his family for his captivity- psychologically, he doesn't have to deal with centuries of oppression of his people. Also, the significance of slaves as "non-living"- a status our narrator accepted when he trained to be a judge in the bush of ghosts- serves as a poignant literary device to bring him back to the world of the living. Perhaps Tutuola has little interest in introducing a critique of slavery into his book this late in the game. It is our American culture that conditions us to expect that any mention of slavery should be a critique of it.