By Liesbeth Tjon-A-Meeuw

Lecturer Dr. Nimoh (KNUST)
Africana Development Studies block 1A, 2024

Through the eyes of the enslaved
Historical events are not just mere events in a distant past. People have lived through these events. They have been shaped and formed by these events. When we look at the different examples of slavery from the perspective of the enslaved in Africa, what new insights do we gain? This paper is an honest attempt to compare the life of a common slave during three different examples of human trafficking that greatly affected African societies: the indigenous form of slavery, the trans-Saharan slave trade and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
A slave is a human being of flesh and blood who find himself at the lowest ranks of society where he is in full-service of somebody from a higher rank and where he has limited movement, ownership and freedom. To have a better understanding of how he might have experienced his own life, we don’t only look at academic research of these three chapters in African history, but we should also take in account the storytelling in where these fictional or non-fictional lives have been portrayed. In this paper we will make use of a variety of sources that has been available to us.
Indigenous slavery that occurred within and among local communities, where for instance people who were taken as servants, war captives, ceremonial sacrifices or to pay of a debt or punishment. Its origin goes back as far as the early civilisations before Christ. In many African societies it was very common to have slaves in noble and wealthy households. But also smaller households could be at want of extra labourers to work for instance on the farmlands. In this paper we rely on the research that has been done in Ghana and use that as an example for other African societies. Especially the writings of Akosua Adoma Perbi (A History of Indigenous slavery, 2004) has been a good source to understand the dynamics of the societies that were run by elderly. It explains how the practice of indigenous slavery, after being a marginal element of these communities for centuries, could become a lucrative enterprise in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
What we see in the indigenous form of slavery is that the enslaved could live a humane live and stay in an environment that was familiar to him (or her). He would speak the same language, have the same cultural background and believes. His master had the responsibility to provide housing, clothes and food for him. He could marry and have a family of his own in the same house. Also, he could have some property (land), have some extra earnings and even become prosperous enough to have his own servants. Moreover, there were possibilities to end his enslavement and ascend on the social-economic ladder, after he had exhibit merit or when he was appreciated by his master.
One thing that was unique to the examples of indigenous slavery was the fact that the enslaved could also become part of the family of his master. Buying a slave at the local market from your own kin was out of the question. Instead, a slave should be somebody from another tribe. However, after years of loyal service and building up a trusted relationship, an indigenous slave could emancipate into the master’s family and become kin, even taken the family name of his superior. In the Ghanaian communities there are instances where a former slave married into the family of the master. With that, the serfdom ended.
Reading the folktales from the precolonial societies can give us an indication of how the life of an enslaved looked like. For instance, in the Peul legend of Silamaka & Puloru, written down by the well-known griot Amadou Hampaté Ba from Mali, we learn about the close friendship between prince Silamaka and his slave Puloru. Their fathers were master and slave as well and passed on their close bond to their sons, who were born the same day. In their household their slaves seem to be part of the family, they sleep, eat and even marry together. Except, that one is a noble man and the other his lifetime servant. At the end of the story Puloru claims that his master only made him feel a slave three times in his life. One time, during their bathing, he was summoned to go out of the water to fetch their clothes and consequently show his private parts to spectators nearby. The second time was when the prince forbade him to turn on his new pair of boots. And the third was when Puloru’s master decided to die on the battlefield without informing his lifetime friend and servant. Only during these three occasions that Puloru was reminded of his inferior status. Although the truthfulness of this legend is uncertain, it does give an idea of how the life of a indigenous slave could have been during those times.
When we look at the examples in the slave trade that ran through the Sahara, we get a different picture of an average slave who was taken from his (or her) familiar place and brought into an unknown society, miles away from home. The trans-Saharan slave trade already existed for at least seven centuries before the colonial period began. The trade, known for its caravan of Arab merchandisers, covered long distances from the Northern part of Africa all the way to the eastern part, crossing the Red Sea into the Persian Gulf and beyond. The trade contributed largely to the expansion of the Islamic world and captured a few thousands slaves per year. Although slaves were not always blacks, a significant proportion came from Africa.
The arrival of the slaves helped the population of the new Islamic world to grow. Especially women and slaves from Africa were being favoured. The men could be used in military and administrative services and the women were especially good for domestic duties, but also as concubines. This was the time when concubines were of high demand in the Arabic-speaking societies. As soon as the concubine would have children, she could not be sold anymore. The status of being a slave was often permanent, but there are also examples where slaves climbed up on the social ladder and had a chance to earn their freedom. When the master of a concubine passed away, she would receive her emancipation.
An important characteristic of the trans-Saharan slave trade is that the enslaved could be converted to Islam and therefore belong to a growing religion. Once an enslaved was converted he could not be sold anymore. Conversion could work as a form of protection for the slave and allowed him to stay in lifetime service of a Muslim household. Unlike the indigenous slave who would integrate into a community with familiar culture and customs, the black slave in the Islamic society would have to adapt to a foreign language, culture and believe-system. This form of social isolation made it easier to control and dominate him.
Stories about slaves in the ancient Islamic world are very rare, but there are some well-known references in, for instance, the biblical story of Joseph or the Arabic tales in the Thousand-and-One Night storytelling. A more recent one is the love story, in the Turkish film Harem Suare (1999), between a white concubine, Safiye, and a black eunuch, Nadir, during the final days of the Ottoman empire. It becomes clear in the story how both lovers are completely owned by the Sultan. ’Slaves among the slaves’ as said in the film. They do not have a life of their own and the only way to survive and gain a few liberties is to become the master’s favourite. That is how the most-trusted eunuch of the sultan forges a bond with the most favourite concubine. Only during their intimate moments that they experience some personal happiness. Eventually, their slave-status ends when the empire falls apart. Also this is a fictional story that shows us glimpses of the past.
There is a lot more portraits available from the trans-Atlantic slave trade that brought slavery to a whole other level. During a period of four centuries, from the fourteenth century up until the eighteenth century, an estimation of twelve million people were shipped away from the African shores to the Americas. This was the result of European sailors who found resourceful suppliers among the Africans, who had conquered other nations and found a lucrative way to sell of many war-captives at once. The trans-Atlantic trade transformed slavery into an industry and institution that became the foundation of the new societies in the European colonies. In contrary to the trans-Saharan trade, most of the enslaved were men that were needed for the hard labour on the plantations. This example of slavery is also called chattel slavery, because the enslaved would become the complete property of the plantation owner, literally part of his goods. This was also expressed by putting slaves into metal chains, tied and treated as animals.
If an average slave had survived the horrendous crossing of the middle passage, he (or she) would remain in a state of tremendous fear and uncertainties. After the humiliation at the slave market he could fall into the hands of a kind or cruel plantation-owner. Either way, the enslaved find himself at the mercy of his master in a society where he could not have property or a secured family live. Family members were often ripped apart from each other and sold to different owners. A slave in the Americas could not have his own name, identity or culture. They were converted to Christianity in where they were taught to obey their master and accept their condemnation to serfdom. Their lives were constant under threat, because they could be punished, sold or harassed anytime by any person from the higher class. From many personal records we know that they had to survive under extreme circumstances and that they suffered a great deal.
The trans-Atlantic trade distinguishes itself from other forms of slavery because of its racial dimension. In the European colonies slavery was based on skin colour and it didn’t matter whether a person was light or dark. The moment you had any African genes, you belonged to the lowest class in society. That means you were isolated and no rights or status as a citizen. The state, your owner and other members of the white class would decide on your fate. The legal racial structures were set up for that purpose. That means a slave could not climb the social ladder in these societies and would remain politically and economically marginalised. Also after the abolishment of slavery, in the nineteenth century, their living conditions didn’t really change.
The abolitionist movement documented many slave narratives from real people who had endured all this hardship. The autobiographical story of Olaudah Equiano (1789) from the Ibo-tribe in old-Nigeria is particular interesting for this paper. He describes how he was kidnapped as a child and brought into indigenous slavery first, before he was taken to the West-Indies. He makes the following comparison: ‘Those prisoners which were not sold or redeemed, we kept as slaves. But how different was their condition from that of the slaves in the West-Indies! With us they do no more work than other members of the community. Even their food, clothing, lodging were nearly the same (…)’ Equiano works as a young slave for a chain of masters with whom he sails to many places on the American continent. He notices how unjust human trafficking is and that ‘God could never have intended that one man has dominion over his fellows’. After years of hard labour Equiano finds a way to save up money and buy himself out. During his final years he becomes an important voice in the British abolitionist movement.
What we can learn from comparing these different forms of slavery through the perspective of the enslaved, is that the geographical location plays a key factor in taking ownership over another human being. When a captive is taken out of his familiar environment it becomes much easier to determine his fate and future. There are not many other options for a slave than to adapt to his new habitat and hope that his situation becomes better one day. The oldest form of slavery, the indigenous one, created an infrastructure in where the trans-Saharan slave trade could flourish. The European slave traders made it into an industry and laid the foundation of the ‘New World’ they created. The trans-Atlantic trade comes across as one of the extreme forms of slavery that left its racial marks on today’s society. At the same time, it is also the reason why eventually all forms of slavery was abolished and became an illegal activity around the globe.

Research material:
Olaudah Equiano (1996) Equiano’s Travels
Ferzan Ozpetek (1999) Harem Suare
Amadou Hampaté Ba (2002) Silamaka & Puloru
Akosua Adoma Perbi (2004) A History of Indigenous slavery
Paul E. Lovejoy (2012) Transformations in Slavery