Slavery within Sub-Saharan Africa
Slavery within Sub-Saharan Africa encompasses slavery and slave trade within the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and existed before the arrival of Arab and European slave traders.
Exact data can hardly be obtained since, in contrast to the Atlantic slave trade, for example, no records and statistics exist. However, there are estimates that intra-African slavery affected around 10-15 million people.
distribution
According to reports from Arab travelers and European observers, slavery was widespread in the West African empires of Ghana , Mali and Songhai , in the Ashanti empire in what is now Ghana , in Dahomey ( Benin ), among the Hausa and Yoruba in what is now Nigeria, and in the Congo area .
The Ethiopian kingdoms of the Gibe region exported approximately 7,000 slaves annually to the rest of Ethiopia and abroad, with mutual assaults and attacks on neighboring tribes serving as a source of slave procurement.
Position of the slaves
Slaves worked in the household and in agriculture, but were also integrated into the traditional state apparatus as docile officials.
Most of the slaves were prisoners of war who were captured in wars and targeted raids against other tribes. In addition, there were also slaves who were tributed by tributary tribes, and debt could also lead to enslavement within one's own tribe. Occasionally there were also children who had been sold into slavery by their families, and in rare cases there was also slavery in the context of religion (see for example Trokosi ).
Slaves were allowed to marry, raise children, and own houses and belongings. Releases occurred. The exact modalities of slavery before the 19th century are difficult to determine because of the often problematic sources and the size and diversity of the area concerned.
Importance for the Atlantic slave trade
For the European slave traders, who obtained slaves from Africa from the 15th to the 19th century in order to use them in their colonies in America , the existence of the intra-African slave trade was one of the prerequisites for their activity. So they hardly ever went on a slave hunt themselves, but could buy people from African (and Arab) slave traders and rulers. In return, they received “luxury goods” from Europe such as firearms, textiles and alcohol, as well as cowries .
Importance for the oriental slave trade
The older and numerically more extensive Trans-Saharan and East African slave trade also developed on the basis of African fishing practices. It was mostly run by Arabs and in West Africa only affected people captured by Africans. In the 19th century, the Ethiopians and Arabs intervened heavily in the acquisition of slaves in Sudan and Central East Africa. Ethiopians sold slaves in the markets for Maria Theresa thalers and amoli (bars of salt).
Intra-African Slavery Today
In the course of the European colonization of Africa, the intra-African slave trade as well as the slave trade of the Arabs ( see East African slave trade ) was gradually pushed back, but continued to exist in secret for a long time.
Traditional forms of slavery still exist today as slavery in Sudan , Mauritania and generally as slavery in West Africa in Mali and Niger ( Iklan descendants among the Tuareg in the latter two states).
In some cases, they are superimposed on the modern child trafficking , which, according to UNICEF, affects 200,000 children in West Africa .
See also
- Tchamba , cult of possession in the south of Togo in memory of the time of slavery
literature
- Christian Delacampagne: The History of Slavery. 2004, ISBN 3-538-07183-7 , pp. 139-142.
- Egon Flaig: World History of Slavery. CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58450-3 .
- Paul E. Lovejoy: Transformations in Slavery . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983.
- Claude Meillassoux: Anthropology of Slavery , Frankfurt / M., 1989.
- Patrick Manning: Slavery and African Life , Cambridge 1990.
- Donald R. Wright: History of Slavery and Africa. Microsoft Encarta, 2000.
- Michael Zeuske: Slaves and Slavery in the Worlds of the Atlantic, 1400-1940. Outlines, beginnings, actors, fields of comparison and bibliographies. Volume 1: Slavery and Post Emancipation. LIT Verlag, Münster / Hamburg / London 2006, ISBN 3-8258-7840-6 .
- Michael Zeuske: Atlantic, slaves and slavery - elements of a new global history. In: Yearbook for European Overseas History. Volume 6, 2006, pp. 9-44, ISSN 1436-6371 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Fässler: Journey in black and white: Swiss on-site appointments in matters of slavery . Rotpunktverlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-85869-303-0
- ↑ Meillassoux: Anthropology . Pp. 176-200.
- ↑ Flaig: World History . Pp. 174-176.
- ↑ Flaig: World History . Pp. 105-117, 141-148, 171-174. Manning: Slavery . Pp. 136-140.
- ↑ Flaig: World History . Pp. 210-217.