Was the Tree of Forgetfulness Real?

It is an empirical fact that there exists a "Tree of Forgetfulness" in Quidah, and while the stories around it are compelling there are some things that don't quite add up.

It's inconsistent with the practice of Vodou.

There is indeed slavery in Vodou, but it's still Vodou. Central to the practice is that ancestor worship is essential to the worship of God, as God is the Eldest Ancestor.

Marinade on that for minute. Every opponent of

A king that believes his authority comes from God will commission an object to sever random people's ability to connect with and worship God. And he does this expecting to keep his fortune, to keep his sovereignty, his own freedom, and his own divine connections? There already existed in Vodou a means by which a person who took another person as property could ensure that those that they enslaved did not become a problem for them;

MAMA TCHAMBA instructs slaveowners to honor the connections between the slaves, their ancestors and their vodous. This is accomplished by creating stools on their slaves' behalf and giving offerings of gold, silver, iron, chalk, kola nut, gin, tea, and brass to those ancestors and vodous. Do this and the slaves' ancestors and spirits will recognize the slaveowner as having authority over the slave and even permit the slave to be adopted into the slaveowner's household, creating a willing subordination of the slave to the slaveowner. So with this already a facet of both the King's and the slave's cultural world view, why would they commission a witchcraft, an adzewɔwɔ to escape responsibility for their involvement?

From the Forgetting Tree to Elmina Castle structures were installed along the Slave Coast to begin the demoralization of the various peoples taken as slaves, but to a one they are foreign impositions backed by puppet kings and emperors under the thumb of their mercantile elite. These structures existed to dissuade the African peoples from challenging the peculiar institution. And today, western academia continues to advance half truths and falsehoods about West African empires, kingdoms, and chiefdoms to ameliorate the crimes their parent societies committed in the past. Not because they are ashamed, but because the past is prelude and they can't do it twice if we remember what happened the last time. There is more to say on this matter, but the spirits are telling me to hold my peace.