Although historians continue to trace the existence of the Atlantic slave trade back to African domestic slavery that was part of social structure, my investigation into African social stratification in the kingdoms of Senegambia uncovers significant differences between slavery as practiced within the Atlantic trade and so-termed African domestic slavery. The chapter’s objective is to affirm the absence of a correlation between the two forms of slavery. First, it questions the extent to which inegalitarian social structures, of which domestic slavery was a part, resulted in an openness to the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trades. It argues that inegalitarian societies were in fact closed to their development into commercial slavery. Social stratification in West Africa, with its connected domestic slavery, was not designed to provide a reserve of captives, in other words. Rather, as exemplified by the case of Gajaaga, the primary function of inegalitarian social structures was to integrate people into society as dependents and kin. The second line of inquiry pursues how, with the presence of the Atlantic slave trade, this primary function dissolved in certain cases. Kingdoms that adhered to the Atlantic slave trade ceased their integration of these individuals, leaving them as easy prey for slave-hunting.

Positing that African countries willingly commemorate the transatlantic slave trade but forget the legacies of domestic slavery, this chapter examines the continuation of slavery in the shadows of the House of Slaves at Gorée Island. To examine these hidden legacies of slavery, this chapter looks at the history of the mixed-race Signares and their historical implication in the slave trade and domestic slavery. One of the moral conundrums in the legacy of the Signares is their mixed parentage of European fathers and subordinate Black mothers, placing race at the heart of the cultural creolization (métissage) that is celebrated today as the legacy of Signares. This chapter establishes that the heritages of the slave trade and the Signares are framed as irreconcilable discourses that lead to divergent interpretations of the material culture of the island. Examining a controversial statue, the island’s architectural legacies, the impersonators of Signares, and the Festival of Return, this chapter establishes that the antinomies between the legacies of the slave trade and the Signares are occasionally overcome in rituals of reconciliation.

During the slave trade, Signares kept domestic slaves and accumulated considerable wealth. As Signares walked to Midnight Mass, their dresses were illuminated by the light of lanterns made and carried by their slaves, highlighting their wealth. This chapter examines the historical origins of the lantern festival or Fanal, as it is known in Saint-Louis, and its continuous performance as cultural heritage in the city. Celebrated as Creole legacy by President Senghor, he made it a national heritage. This chapter examines the assemblages the festival establishes between the patrons and their craftspeople as their relations are mediated by the materiality and performativity of the lanterns paraded at the festival. Although the heirs of the Signares left Saint-Louis at national independence and the festival has been appropriated by African citizens, it continues to celebrate forms of difference and distinction reminiscent of domestic slavery. Furthermore, by celebrating the achievements of the patrons, the lantern festival still establishes the status of patrons as ‘shining lights’ of the nation. This suggests that the African citizens who act as patrons have accepted the responsibilities with which their colonial predecessors have endowed them. Through colonial nostalgia they have assumed the legacy of colonialism.

Mamluk Sultante, military slavery, domestic slavery, Egypt, Syria, manumission, slave trade, Islamic Law and slavery

This chapter describes the forms of enslavement that existed in the Americas prior to contact with the Old World. Scholars have long avoided the subject due to their concern that indigenous Americans are already too much associated with savagery. However, the time has come to gather together all that we know of the varied forms of coerced labor. The information only helps us to humanize and comprehend ancient Americans. In Mesoamerica and South America, agricultural states did demand contributions from communities of laboring people; but though these people were diempowered dependents, they were not slaves. The vast majority of those who really were enslaved were prisoners of war who were maintained as domestics, most of them women. We even have some sixteenth-century texts that reveal something of these women's lives. Meanwhile, among the semi-sedentary peoples of North America, slavery likewise existed, as an effect of perennial warfare, but not nearly to the same extent as in the agricultural states to the south.