Beyonce’s Love Draught Video Reminisces Igbo Landing

Beyonce

It is one of the many strik
ing images from Beyonce’s  ‘Lemonade’  visual  album. The scene (from the love draught video)  showcases a procession of black women walking into an ocean as if  -they are about to drown themselves  willingly.
The video draws inspiration from a slave time story popularly known as the “Igbo Landing” which  is the story of Igbos who were brought to America  to be slaves but vowed to drown  themselves rather than be slaves in foreign land. Here is   the full story of the ‘Igbo Landing’  via Wikipedia.
“In May 1803, a ship load of captives from West Africa upon arriving the middle passage  were landed  by American  paid captors in Savannah by slave ship to be auctioned off at one of the local slave markets. The ship enslaved passengers  included  a member of Igbo people from what is now known as Nigeria.
The Igbos were known by planters and slavers of American south for being  fiercely independent  and resistant to chattel slavery. The group of 75 Igbo slaves  were brought  by agent  of John  Couper  and Thomas   Spalding for forced  labour  in their plantations in St. Simon’s Island for $100 each.
The chained slaves were packed under the deck of a small vessel named the Schooner York to be shipped  to the island.
(Other sources say the voyage took place aboard the morovia). During this voyage, the Igbo slaves rose up in rebellion, taking control of the ship and drowning their captors in the process causing the grounding of the Morovia in Dubar creek at the site now locally known as “Igo Landing”.
According to the historical account, under the direction of a high Igbo chief,  they all  walked in unison into the creek singing in Igbo language  “the  water spirit brought us, the  water spirit  will take us home”. They would  rather accept the protection of Chukwu than  end up in chains. Pretty remarkable  story, and in parts of south Carolina and Georgia, this story still  holds true and the ground where the slaves drowned themselves is a historical land mark.
The entire video is set in a Marhy Swampy  landscape which is very reminiscent  of what the  shores  of slave  landing will be  like and in addition, there is a lot of random imagery  that points to the slave trade and landings. One of them is seeing  Beyonce physically bound  in ropes and trying to resist  the pulling.
This is not the only African inspired theme in the album, Nigerian designer  Amaka Osakwe is credited  with designing  some of the outfits Beyounce wore in some videos in the  album. In addition, Beyonce featured famed novelist  Chimamanda Adichie  in her  2013 hit single “Flawless”
Source Naij.Com