Slave? What Slave? A Study of the Traditional Systems of African Servitude

[M.Panther]

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The argument that slavery was a system endemic in Africa, to which the Atlantic Slave Trade was simply incidental, was one that was used by anti- abolitionists, slave traders and later Eurocentric historians in an attempt to justify chattel slavery in the Americas and downplay the damage done to the African continent and its indigenous societies by European capitalist intervention. Similar sentiments expressed by these interest groups also stated that not only was slavery widespread and an entrenched element of African societies before and during European intervention, but that the European trade simply shifted the location and not the character of slavery, giving the impression that slaves were abundant and simply awaiting purchase by Europeans from their African masters. It was even stated that greater good was done by exporting Africans to the Americas where they would be under the " civilizing" influence of Europeans (Inikori, 156) . As we examine the question of the existence of slavery in African society before the 1400's and attempt to determine the nature and extent of such a system, the supporting views stated above must be taken as extensions of the 'conventional view' of African slavery in order for us to put it in its proper context. The creators of this view, in dictating that their slave trade was legitimate because it already existed among the people they intended to enslave, assumed a uniform definition of slavery and attempted to equate a uniquely European term and system with a very different system in Africa. Upon closer examination of the nature of the indigenous African systems of servitude in comparison with European and Arab chattel slavery, we will see that the word " slavery" in this context is not at all applicable and creates a distorted view of the complex systems of dependency that existed on the African continent for centuries. While it will be shown that varying states of 'unfreedom' did exist as part of complex, kinship-based traditional African societies, not only were the systems incomparable to European and Arab chattel slavery, but they existed on a relatively small domestic scale until the intervention of European interests. It was only when European interests became more deeply entrenched in the societies by the 17th and 18th century, that we see the increased external demand for labour and the resulting exploitation of African power structures, significantly altering the nature of the systems and causing them to resemble the chattel slavery of the Europeans.

A critical examination of the complex nature of African systems of servitude raises several questions. What have we defined as slavery? Is this definition uniform in time and space? And indeed if such slavery was endemic in Africa before the Atlantic Slave Trade, what were its defining characteristics? If these characteristics were found to be more dynamic then static, what were the influences that altered its character? The word "slave" is said to have originated in Europe when Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe were seized and exploited for their labour in conditions that resembled that of European chattel slavery in the Americas. It can be said that this was not just linguistic commonality but that the term 'slavery' was then synonymous with that particular system of chattel slavery. If one examines the nature of systems of so-called slavery throughout history, we will observe well-ordered, complex systems of servitude that did not involve the severe dislocation, inhumanity, and the creation of a continued underclass, as did that of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

It is critical that a working definition of slavery be sought. J.D Fage asserted that, "a slave was a man or woman who was owned by another person, whose labour was regarded as having economic value, and whose person had a commercial value" (Fage, 156). Others see the term slavery as applying strictly to chattel slavery, where the rights of the individual are completely absent. While the common link between almost all the definitions of slavery has been the ownership of the individual by another and this may seem to be a perfectly logical definition, the complexities and differences in the states of such people, the conditions of such ownership and the preservation of inalienable human rights varied so widely from country to country that it is difficult to develop a static idea of what constitutes slavery. In African societies, servitude was akin to an arranged marriage, whereas Chattel slavery was a state organized Economic institution. While there were persons who did exist in various states of bondage and sometimes purely as commodities, many of them possessed and effectively retained the inalienable human rights of free men and women. In traditional African systems of kinship, the members of lineage groups " owned" their members who then constituted lineage wealth. Everyone in the community is dependent upon or bound to another to some extent, whether slave or free. To say that a slave is simply the property or another does not adequately describe the condition of bonded dependents in an African context.

It is clear that European explorers, merchants and slavers who observed systems of what they termed 'slavery' operating in African societies had a poor understanding of the communal nature of the African ethos and the nature of family and kinship ties. Mbaye Gueye makes an astute observation: "The African ideal is that of a community existence based on powerful family ties with a view to a well ordered secure life. People only count as far as they are part of a harmonious, homogenous entity" (Gueye) What we see is a focus on community over individuality; persons' individual rights only exist as far as it benefits the community. As observed among the Fulani and the Bu Kerebe tribes, children who were abandoned by their own people were taken under servitude, in which case the child would then owe his saviors lifelong service. Also, adults and children could be bartered for grain in times of famine to save the rest of the group. To complicate the issue even further, the nature of these dependencies varied decidedly from state to state, in terms of acquisition, the factors that would allow someone to legally become 'enslaved', and the condition of these bonded individuals. Unredeemed hostages taken in times of war could end up in servitude, and in compensation for homicide a child of the offending clan could be taken into servitude by the clan of the victim. This particular circumstance was immortalized in the novel based on Igbo culture, Things Fall Apart (Achebe), where a child of the offending clan was sent to serve the family of one of the leading clansmen of the wronged clan. This was a sort of peace offering to prevent the clans going to war. What is to be noted in this example is that, for the most part, the child was incorporated into the family and was seen as a son. The servants/dependents did not form a separate class of labourers for the clan. The dependent could play as minor or as major a role in the clan as the elders saw fit. Some provided extra wives and children to expand a kin group, were labour to till the fields, soldiers for warfare, or they served as trading agents and officials at court.