Slavery is one of the important issues addressed in “The Grieved Lands of Africa”. The poem makes reference to the trans-atlantic slave trade that shook the African continent to its roots. Many Africans were carted away like commodities in ships to work as slaves in foreign lands beyond the Mediterranean Sea. The poet puts this wave of slavery as “ancient … slave”. This “ancient” slavery was perpetuated by European and Arab slavers with the inside help of internecine tribal conflicts.

The theme of slavery is further reinforced by tropes like “ancient slave”, “corpses thrown by the Atlantic”, “degrading sweat of impure dance/of other seas”, etcetera.