THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY IN AFRICA BEFORE THE SLAVE TRADE
Slavery has always existed in Africa according to various sources. Slaves would be acquired through war or kidnapping, by purchase or for repayment of debts.
Africans in the North and North Eastern parts sold slaves to Arabs and Mediterranean countries to be used as domestic servants, labourers in agriculture and mining or as concubines or sex slaves. These were mostly ‘prisoners of war’.
Though this is not the subject in question we must mention that trade in African slaves between East Africa and the Arab world probably had more ghastly stories than that of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade but has not attracted as much attention because of lack of corroborated information.
Ghanaian Professor and Minister John Allembillah Azumah in an interview with Larry Elder a Black American columnist, about his book ‘The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa’ asserts that most of the slaves in the Arab world were female and were used as concubines or sex slaves in harems; the men were castrated and forcibly conscripted into military service. The percentage of slaves who died in transit was as high as 80-90%, and if an estimated 28 million slaves were taken to the middle east then factoring in this death rate, a staggering 112 million slaves were captured and or sold. But there is no predominant black presence in the Middle East because their children were killed. A story for another blog.
West and Central Africa slaves were mainly domestic servants or labourers.
Three main systems were being used in these areas, Kinship or Pawnship systems and a system for those captured from other tribes.
Kings, Chiefs, Noblemen would show off their wealth or importance based on the number of slaves they had.
In the Kinship system, slaves and their offspring belonged to a family and were integrated. They could be paid wages for their work or given some form of compensation which might be having all their needs being taken care of. There was inter-marrying with slaves. In the household of Kings or Noblemen slaves were known to rise up the ranks and become notable people in society.
In the Pawnship system, a person was given as collateral and would either work to repay the debt or be kept until the debt was paid by the debtor.
In both systems the slaves could not be sold because they were either part of a family or collateral.
Those captured as Prisoners of War, or kidnapped as a show of force or for any other reason, were eventually sold or killed as part of rituals or to support Kings or Chiefs who died and would apparently need servants in the afterlife. People convicted of crimes for which corporal punishment was to be exacted would be in the category of these slaves and as there were no prison facilities, they would be sold, executed or given hard labour that others did not want to do.
Non-Africans found slavery already in existence in Africa and so found it easy to get access to their ‘goods’ which they manipulated for profit. The major difference was that even slaves who were prisoners of war were not mistreated on racial lines. Nor were they considered less than humans, although mistreatment by tyrannical Kings or Noblemen can’t be ruled out.
So there was slavery in Africa prior to the Trans- Atlantic Slave trade and according to various sources worst atrocities were committed but the problem is the lack of corroborated evidence. How then did TAST came about, what did Africa try to do to stop it and more importantly how has TAST affected our development. Perhaps we may find ways to mitigate these effects.
Our next article will examine how TAST became one of the major Interferences
Sources: Slavery in Africa
Paul E. Lovejoy is a Distinguished Research Professor at York University
Transformations in Slavery – A History of Slavery in Africa Chapter 1 Africa and Slavery
