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SUMMARY:Coercion and Markets: reconciling economic and social explanations
  of slavery in precolonial West Africa\, c1450-c1900 - Gareth Austin (Univ
 ersity of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20251127T171500Z
DTEND:20251127T184500Z
UID:TALK240682@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:116791
DESCRIPTION:Though this is not much noticed in comparative and global hist
 ories of slavery\, enslavement and slave trading were the main source of l
 abour recruitment\, apart from the slower process of marriage and child-re
 aring\, in the economies of precolonial West Africa. As elsewhere in the w
 orld\, first-generation slaves in African societies were mostly foreigners
 . Unlike the forms of slavery practised by Europeans\, however\, indigenou
 s African slavery usually had an assimilative element\, in that the descen
 dants of slaves tended to be integrated into the society concerned on incr
 easingly more equal terms over subsequent generations\, with varying rates
  and degrees of completion. The conjunction of slave labour and partial as
 similation has generated a long-running debate between ‘economic’ and 
 ‘social’ interpretations of the institution in its West African settin
 gs. This paper aims to reconcile and integrate these traditionally rival i
 nterpretations\, and to explore the economic implications. I argue that\, 
 in radical ways\, it was the interaction of economic and social (and cultu
 ral and political) dimensions of slavery that was central to the history o
 f slavery in precolonial West Africa. On the one hand\, the growth in the 
 volume of slavery and the specific uses to which slaves were put within th
 e region cannot be explained without reference to the demand for slaves as
  labourers producing commodities. On the other hand\, without organized co
 ercion\, and the political and ideological conditions for applying it\, th
 ere could have been no slavery and no slave trade. Indeed\, it will be arg
 ued here that\, without such coercion\, there would have been no market in
  labour at all in the economic conditions that prevailed in most of West A
 frica during this era. In other words\, the Nieboer-Domar hypothesis appli
 es in its strongest form. Moreover\, the assimilative tendency in African 
 slavery should be seen both as responding to the political circumstances o
 f the region (the severe constraints on state formation) and\, ironically\
 , as underpinning the continuation of the internal slave trade.
LOCATION:Lightfoot Room - St John's College
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