The End of Slavery in Africa

by Suzanne Miers, Richard Roberts

Overview

This is the first comprehensive assessment of the end of slavery in Africa. Editors Suzanne Miers and Richard Roberts, with the distinguished contributors to the volume, establish an agenda for the social history of the early colonial period-hen the end of slavery was one of the most significant historical and cultural processes. The End of Slavery in Africa is a sequel to Slavery in Africa, edited by Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff and published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 1977. The contributors explore the historical experiences of slaves, masters, and colonials as they all confronted the end of slavery in fifteen sub-Saharan African societies. The essays demonstrate that it is impossible to generalize about whether the end of slavery was a relatively mild and nondisruptive process or whether it marked a significant change in the social and economic organization of a given society. There was no common pattern and no uniform consequence of the end of slavery. The results of this wide-ranging inquiry will be of lasting value to Africanists and a variety of social and economic historians.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299115548
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	11/15/1988
Edition description:	1
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

Table of Contents

	Maps	xiii
	Contributors	xv
	Preface	xvii
	Note on Orthography	xix
I.	Introduction
1.	The End of Slavery in Africa	3
	The main issues	3
	Origins of the modern concept of abolition	8
	Forms of abolition before the partition of Africa	10
	The British "Caribean model,"	10
	The British "Indian model,"	12
	French and Portuguese forms of abolition	13
	The antislavery movement and the partition of Africa	15
	The role of the colonial states in ending slavery	17
	Colonial conquest and changes in the political economy	18
	Colonial antislavery policies: slave-raiding and -trading	19
	Colonial antislavery policies: the suppression of slavery	21
	International pressure to end slavery	24
	The impact of changes in regional and international markets	25
	The transition from slavery to freedom: a historiographic debate	27
	The ambiguities of freedom: slaves and owners in the aftermath of slavery	33
	Women slaves and freedom	38
	Slave children and freedom	40
	Slave-owners and freedom	41
	The persistence of unfree labor: forced labor and pawning	42
	Conclusion	47
	The end of slavery in comparative perspective and as an international issue	54
II.	A Historiographical Debate
2.	Britain and the Suppression of Slavery in the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti, and the Northern Territories	71
	British policy towards slavery before 1874	73
	Categories of slaves and pawns	75
	Enactment of and immediate reactions to the antislavery legislation in the Gold Coast Colony, 1874	78
	The attack on the overland slave trade	82
	Slaveholding and slave emancipation	84
	Akyem Abuakwa and the McSheffrey hypothesis	86
	Role of the Basel Mission in Akyem	87
	Estimates of numbers of freed slaves	88
	Slave villages of refuge	89
	Alternatives for former slaves: emancipation and wage labor	92
	Impact of the ordinances on pawnholding	94
	Ashanti	95
	The dilemma of colonial rule	96
	Pawns in Ashanti	99
	The demise of slavery and pawning in Ashanti	100
	Suppressing the slave trade and slavery in the Northern Territories	100
	British administration in the north	102
	Evidence for a revisionist interpretation	103
	Conclusion	105
III.	The Politics of Antislavery
3.	The Ending of Slavery in Buganda	119
	Precolonial Ganda slavery	121
	Christianity and slavery	124
	Lugard	127
	The Protestant declaration abolishing slavery	129
	British curtailment of further substantial slave-procurement	131
	Contradictions amongst Christian chiefs	133
	Mwanga's revolt	136
	The new order	138
	"New systems of slavery,"	142
4.	The Delicate Balance of Force and Flight: The End of Slavery in Eastern Ubangi-Shari	150
	Eastern Ubangi-Shari, 1860s-1890s: slave-raiding, the slave trade, and depopulation	152
	The limits of power: the French in eastern Ubangi-Shari, 1890s-1910	155
	Dar al-Kuti, the French, and slavery, 1890s-1911	157
	Dar al-Kuti, 1911-1920: the end of slavery, the persistence of raiding, and the return to subsistence agriculture	162
	Ending raiding, trading, and slavery in eastern Ubangi-Shari, 1910-1920	165
	Conclusion	166
5.	The Politics of Slavery in Bechuanaland: Power Struggles and the Plight of the Basarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve, 1926-1940	172
	The origins of Basarwa "slavery,"	174
	The British and bolata	177
	The Ratshosa affair	181
	The reaction of the British administration	182
	The politics of inquiry	184
	The Tagart Commission	187
	"Missionary slaves": the London Missionary Society inquiry	189
	The Masarwa census	190
	Compromise and cooperation	193
	Conclusion	194
IV.	The Diversity of Slave Initiatives and Ex-Slave Experiences
6.	Slave Resistance and Slave Emancipation in Coastal Guinea	203
	Trade and politics	205
	Slavery on the Guinea coast	208
	Slave emancipation	209
	The slaves stop work in the Rio Nunez	211
	The Rio Pongo and Mellacoree	214
	Conclusion	215
7.	Slaves, Soldiers, and Police: Power and Dependency among the Chikunda of Mozambique, ca. 1825-1920	220
	Chikunda on the prazos in the early nineteenth century	223
	Freedom before abolition, ca. 1850-1877	229
	Abolition: from ivory hunters to slavers and sepais, 1878-1920	235
	Conclusion	245
8.	A Coastal Ex-Slave Community in the Regional and Colonial Economy of Kenya: The WaMisheni of Rabai, 1880-1963	254
	WaMisheni and the regional economy	262
	WaMisheni and the colonial economy	267
	WaMisheni, ex-slaves, and East African coastal history	273
	Epilogue	275
9.	The End of Slavery in the French Soudan, 1905-1914	282
	French policy and the abolition of slavery	284
	The process of emancipation and the diversity of freed slaves' experiences	287
	Adjustments to the end of slavery	293
	Conclusion	302
10.	The Ending of Slavery in Italian Somalia: Liberty and the Control of Labor, 1890-1935	308
	Colonial policies to 1923: a brief chronology	308
	The end of slavery in the coastal towns	311
	Rural slavery and clientship before emancipation	313
	Initial responses to emancipation: slaves, slaveholders, and administrators	316
	Responses to emancipation: the freed slaves	320
	Epilogue to emancipation: the Fascist regime and forced labor	325
	Conclusion	328
11.	"Children of the House": Slavery and Its Suppression in Lasta, Northern Ethiopia, 1916-1935	332
	Slavery and production in the north: the case of Lasta	335
	Sources of slavery's demise in Lasta and northern Ethiopia	344
	The fight against slavery in the north	347
	A rural proletariat	353
	Epilogue	356
12.	A Topsy-Turvy World: Slaves and Freed Slaves in the Mauritanian Adrar, 1910-1950	362
	The condition called slavery	364
	Policy and practice: the early years	366
	Political economy and slavery	369
	Drought and depression, poverty and prostitution	374
	The story of Hammody and the hartani "work ethic,"	379
	Conclusions: a topsy-turvy world	382
V.	New Economies and New Forms of Labor Control
13.	The Reform of Slavery in Early Colonial Northern Nigeria	391
	Lugard's reforms	393
	The economic impetus to the end of slavery	399
	Taxation and the slave system	400
	Land tenure and the slave system	407
14.	Slavery and Forced Labor in the Changing Political Economy of Central Angola, 1850-1949	415
	Slavery in central Angola: nineteenth century	417
	Portuguese conquest and the transformation of slavery, 1890-1910	419
	Portuguese antislavery policy, 1890-1918	422
	The colonial economy and the struggle to control labor, 1918-1949	425
	Conclusion	433
15.	The Decline of Slavery among the Igbo People	437
	Slavery among the Igbo people before 1850	437
	The expansion of domestic slavery after 1850	441
	The suppression of slavery in Igboland--first attempts	443
	Continued suppression of slavery, the use of forced labor, and the establishment of a free-labor market in Igboland	445
	Wage labor and the decline of slavery	450
	The persistence of slavedealing and "voluntary" servitude	451
	Increasing numbers of osu	454
	The persistence of pawning	455
	Conclusion: the emergence of new classes	455
16.	The Ending of Slavery in the Eastern Belgian Congo	462
	Precolonial slavery	464
	The growth of slave labor under Zanzibari rule	465
	Redeeming slaves and recruiting labor in King Leopold's Congo	467
	Slavery and forced labor under Belgian rule	473
	Conclusion	478
VI.	Reflections
17.	The Cultural Context of African Abolition	485
	Predictions about and the reality of abolition	485
	Western notions of slavery and the scenario of abolition	488
	African cultural notions of "slavery,"	490
	The anthropology of emancipation	494
	Index	507

Editorial Reviews

"The editors . . . seemed to have relished the search for the unique in their encyclopaedic catalogue of various possibilities in emancipation. . . . The more lasting contribution of the book is perhaps the fifteen case studies across Africa from Mauritania to Mozambique."--Abdul Sheriff, University of Dar es Salaam

"The end of slavery is one of the most misunderstood major social changes to take place in colonial Africa. Many people believe that the Emancipation Act of 1834 ended all slavery in the British empire. It did not; forms of slavery continued under British and French rule into the 1930s. Miers and Roberts' collection of essays goes a long way to correct false impressions. The editors provide an excellent introduction to the volume, and Igor Kopytoff's concluding essay on African emancipation in its rural context is alone worth the price of admission."--Philip D. Curtin, The Johns Hopkins University

"This book makes an important contribution to the study of African history. Focusing on the end of slavery, it gives us another vantage point from which to view colonial rule, and provides insights not thus far given by studies into resistance and collaboration, labour history and colonial policy."--Ken Smith, University of South Africa

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