Domestic Slavery in West Africa

JOHN GRACE

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DOMESTIC SLAVERY IN WEST AFRICA

WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE SIERRA LEONE PROTECTORATE, ; 1896-1927.

FREDERICK MULLER LIMITED

CHAPTER I

Domestic Slavery in West Africa during the Nineteenth Century

Most European travellers to West Africa never realized the complexity and richness of its culture. Explorers, missionaries, traders, rulers and administrators were blinded by their cultural arrogance, by their insistence on judging West Africa by European standards. They did not understand that this region was larger than Western Europe and that it included peoples and cultures as sophisticated and as varied as any other part of the world.

\ Only recently have Europeans begun to realize the inadequacy of the stereotyped image of pre-colonial Africa as a collection of disorganized and lawless small villages dominated by the fear of their neighbours.1 One of the reasons for the mistakes made by Europeans m West Africa was that they had blindly accepted this view of African life. They could not look at West African society dispassionately nor could they communicate with its leaders effectively; consequently there were many misunderstandings, often with grave consequences for both sides.

1; Some of the worst mistakes were made over the issue of West 'African domestic slavery because few Europeans understood its true nature. They failed to see that it was a complex institution closely related to the societies in which it existed. This was partly because previous European experience had been with the very different slavery of the Transatlantic plantations where slaves were isolated from society to perform one particular task—to produce cash crops. The West African slaves, on the other hand, were not isolated from their fellows and the conditions under which they lived were shaped by local considerations, varying greatly from place to place.

At an extreme were those unlucky enough to be slaves in Old

Domestic Slavery in West Africa

Calabar or Dahomey and thus liable to be sacrificed in great numbers at such important ceremonial occasions as the funerals of leading men.2 Equally wretched were the Ibo cult slaves, the Osu, who were outcasts (mainly drawn from the ranks of domestic slaves) living under the sentence of death and never knowing when the day of their execution would dawn,, the children of Osu, too, inherited their parents' status.3,^»:'•rSI,^•^^^l'lilt^?&y,;^-..•.,;.

The vast majority'of West African domestic slaves! lived safer and happier lives, In 1^90 a colonial administrator made a typical comment; "as in West Africa generally" the condition of slavery among the Ewe was not degrading. Because the Ewe slave could own property—even'other slaves—and because he was treated as a member of the family, EUis thought his life was easier than that of an English agricultural labourer at the time.4 Samuel Crowther, an ex-slave who later became a bishop, wrote similarly about die Yoruba in the middle of the nineteenth century:

The slaves and masters in this country live together as a family; a. they eat out of the same bowl, use the same dress in common -j-, and in many instances are intimate companions, so much so that, i^^'"-!, entering a family circle, a slave can scarcely be distinguished r ^f from a free man unless one is told.5

Even Dr. Madden, a keen abolitionist who spoke out against the British toleration of domestic slavery in the Gold Coast in 1842, felt it necessary to admit that the slaves were mildly treated and were comparatively happy.6 He was referring to the domestic slaves and not to the trade slave, who was treated much more harshly. The trade slave was not bought as a potentially useful member of the household but as an article which could be sold at a profit. Until he was bought as a domestic slave, the trade slave led a wretched life.

As in the rest of West Africa, the life of a domestic slave in the Sierra Leone hinterland could be described as reasonably comfortable and secure—in comparison to the lives of many slaves elsewhere. Human' sacrifice was rare and local custom afforded the slave some •protection'against a cruel master.7 With Somejustification John Myer'Harris 'could tell Sir David Chalmers that native slavery'mthe 'Sierra Leone hinterland was "not a hai service at all"; but he went on to make the very doubtful assertic that it was a feudal system.8

Slavery during the Nineteenth Century

There are considerable difficulties in reaching a clear definition of such a complex and varied institution as West African domestic slavery and in some ways it is easier to start by deciding what it was not. Principally it was not a condition of freedom and the lack of freedom dominated the slave's whole existence. His person, his family, his labour, his time and his skill all belonged to his master.

Nor can it be said that domestic slavery was just another form of serfdom, not unlike that which nourished in medieval Europe;

this wrongly implies that the slave was participating in some form of social contract whereby he or his ancestors had voluntarily surrendered some personal liberties to a lord or a master in exchange for protection. One obvious difference between slavery and serfdom is that the serf was bound to the land but the slave was bound to his master. A second difference is that even if onei could accept the argument that a West African slave lived as pleasant a life as a serf, he had virtually no status as an individualJ in customary law. The West African domestic slave was a chattel without the right to appeal to the law on his own behalf; others could act on his behalf in much the same way as individuals or societies can bring the owner of an animal before the British courts to answer charges of cruelty. Nieboer saw a clear distinction between tile rights of a slave owner and those of a feudal lord:

The slave-owner may do with his slave whatever he is not by special laws forbidden to do; the master of a serf may require from his man such services and tributes only, as the law allows him to require. The slave-owner has a right of property; the '; master of a serf has, so to speak, a ins in re aliena.9

Similarly in his classic work on the Ashanti,Rattray distinguished between the semi-free and the slave:

j, It will have been observed already that a condition of voluntary '. servitude was, in a very literal sense, the heritage of every ' Ashanti; it formed indeed the essential basis of his social system. '''• In West Africa it was the masterless man and woman who ran

the imminent danger of having what we should term "their ;'freedom" turned into involuntary bondage of a much more ;', drastic nature.10

^Domestic Slavery in West Africa

A second difficulty in finding a concise and comprehensive definition of West African domestic slavery is that during the nineteenth century the institution was continually changing—not necessarily for the better—to meet new circumstances. We have heard much of the benefits Europe brought to West Africa but the damage done was also considerable. Although Europeans finally outlawed domestic slavery the arrival of European slave traders actually led to an increase in the number of West African slaves and to a worsening of the condition of slavery. The capitalist ethic also persuaded West African leaders to think more of the cash value of their people and less of their social value. Although it is extreme to blame the Europeans for the existence of West African slavery it is clear that the arrival of the Europeans in West Africa at first strengthened and encouraged the institution of domestic slavery there. Ariene makes this point when he contrasts the prevalence Of human sacrifice in Benin in the nineteenth century (after three centuries of the slave trade) with the favourable^ reports of Benin from Portuguese travellers early in the sixteenth century." Rodney goes even further in blaming the Europeans when he argues that on the Upper Guinea Coast the evils of domestic slavery, and perhaps its very existence, were as much the work of the Europeans as of the tribes of the interior;12''1'.'^'1'1^1'''1"

A third difficulty in arriving at a definition is the highly emotive nature of the word "slavery"; it conjures up visions of whips cracking across die backs of gallery slaves, of brutal castrations, of being worked to death in Roman mines or American plantations, or of painful death to appease some sadistic god. Because of these associations it is not easy to look at slavery objectively.

A more promising approach to the prpblem4)f defining domestic slavery is that of the anthropologist^'RattrayJfound no less than five grades of servitude among the Ashanti, all called slavery in English. The Akyere was the most wretched—like the Osu he or she was under sentence of death until needed as a sacrifice. Better off was the Domum; originally a prisoner of war or a person received as tribute from a foreign state, the Domum could with the chief's consent be killed at funeral ceremonies. Then there was the Odonko, a non-Ashanti man or woman who had been purchased as a slave. Once in Ashantiland he came under the protection of the local chief and could not be killed by his masters, although he would suffer for his crimes at the hands of the chiefs

Slavery during the Nineteenth Century

executioners. This status was not hereditary because his descendants were virtually freemen. A pleasanter condition of servitude was that of an Awowa, a person who had been pledged for debt or punished for a crime and whose freedom was only temporarily restricted. Finally, there was the virtually free Akoa whose only form of servitude was his obedience to the authority of members of the local society more important than himself." By showing how complex Ashanti slavery was, Rattray has helped towards an understanding of West African domestic slavery. He has also shown how difficult it is to define domestic slavery clearly and concisely.

Mungo Park, the explorer, tried to define slavery in terms of class structure: identifying it when subordination and inequalities of rank and condition were carried to so great a length that the persons and services of one part of the community were entirely at the disposal of another part.14M.G. Smith's definition was similar:

^ Slavery is a social institution in which one category of persons—

. the slaves and their descendants—is placed under the control of another—the masters and their heirs.15

Looking at slavery as a form of class division reveals little about the institution itself. These two definitions could just as well be describing serfdom or any form of tyrannical hereditary government. Moreover, they would exclude the slaves like the Odonko who were undoubtedly slaves even though their children were free,

Typically British was the use of the concept of property as the key to defining slavery. This was used both by British humanitarians and by the League of Nations. The Anti-Slavery Reporter wrote that

'The word "Slave", in its true sense, signifies a person who, in the eyes of the law, is the property of, and wholly subject to the will of another.16

In 1906 L.T.Hobhouse defined the slave as "a man whom law and custom regard as the property of another".17 The League of Nations produced tills definition:

Domestic Slavery in West Africa

Slavery is a status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.18:

The trouble with these definitions is that it is very difficult to define property; moreover. West African ideas of property are very different from those of Europeans. If the concept of property implies the right to sell then those domestic slaves whose sale was forbidden by native custom or by the laws of the colonial powers cannot be defined in terms of property. Property is as inadequate as class structure in providing a definition of West African domestic slavery.: . '.,-,.:v:,,.:,,,.:.. Page's definition of a slave is much more helpful^:^^,\^:^

r.'^ a"'plan "or woman who was owned by some other:.person, whose labour was regarded as having economic value, and whose person had a commercial value.19

After setting aside the idea of the commercial value of a person, which is mainly applicable to the trade slave, we are left with two of the basic elements of slavery—ownership and the slave's labour. Yet, this still does not go far enough because a man did not own slaves only for the value of their labour but also for military, political and social considerations. The power and influence of the head of a West African household depended directly on the number of his people—wives, children, other relations, clients and slaves—and the easiest way to increase numbers was to take more wives and slaves. Slaves were sometimes kept to impress others with the power and wealth of their masters—they fulfilled a role not unlike that of the liveried retainers of some medieval barons. Page's definition is incomplete because it omits the idea of slave ownership for military, social and political prestige and power.

From the European point of view definitions which emphasize economic worth, property, class structure and ownership may suffice but they leave out a factor of the utmost importance to the West African. This is the concept of kinship—the most important single factor in determining how a West African lived. Kinship was vital in assessing a person's worth and status even after European influences had encouraged a more commercial'view of one's

Slavery during the Nineteenth Century

fellow man. Because he was a member of a kin group the free man could enjoy his personal rights; the slave who had no kin was consequently a non-person without any personal rights.

Slaves in West Africa during the nineteenth century can quiteJzf simply be seen as persons without kin. By misfortune or by misbehaviour they had lost their status as members of their natural families and had entered into the new and inferior relationship of slave to master. One can combine these different ideas of slaver}' to define domestic slaves as those no longer enjoying the status of kinship with their natural families but owned by other people for the economic value of their labour and for the power and prestige they brought their owners.

The relationship of the domestic slave to his master, unlike that Jjy of die plantation slave to his, usually developed to the slave's advantage. Once in the new household he began to acquire at least some of the status of kin because he would be protected by his master. When he was thought to be of the household, that is domestic, he was unlikely to be sold again. In time slaves and their descendants earned more and more of the privileges of kinship until it was finally forgotten that some members of the household were of servile origin.20

Using the degree of kinship enjoyed in the master's household it is possible to outline five stages of the recently acquired slave's ^& progress to full membership of the family. The trade slave was very badly off because he had none of the rights of kinship and he fared little better than a wild animal except that his owner would not want to lose on his investment by harming the slave; he was either in transit or he was being held while his owner looked for a buyer.

Once the trade slave came to a master who intended keeping him, he was regarded as a domestic slave and was therefore entitled to a measure of consideration. This second stage was like one of probation; for a year or two the slave would be closely supervised and strictly treated. If he proved recalcitrant or tried to run away he would probably be sold. If he settled down well he would progress to the more pleasant third stage. Supervision

Domestic Slavery in West Africa

would be lightened and his life would become happier; he might be given some land and a woman. : -.;",;?Si:

With long and faithful service the domestic slave would progress to a fourth stage in which he became a trusted member of the household. In particular the younger generation, which could not remember the household without him, would treat him with the respect due to their elders. Unless the slave committed a crime or unless there was a grave economic crisis, customary law regarded the sale of a slave of long standing as shameful. A slave ; woman could also establish herself more securely in the household , by bearing her master's children. These children were particularly important to masters in matrilineal societies because they belonged to him unlike his children by his free wives who belonged to their mothers' families. A wise slave could make himself indispensable by serving his master as confidant and adviser and he could even be appointed guardian of the minor children at his master's death.

Only the children of slaves could progress to the fifth stage— that of slaves of the house. Because they had been born into the family they enjoyed greater kinship privileges. They were brought up as friends and playmates of their freeborn fellows and they were rarely sold. Nevertheless, although they were well treated they were n,ot .allowed to forget that they were the children of slaves. By the third and fourth generations servile origins tended to be ignored and forgotten, particularly if—as was so often the case—these descendants of slaves were closely related by blood to the free members of the household. Sometimes these people became clients or dependents of the houshold and enjoyed the same sort of status as a free stranger who had voluntarily sought the protection of the head of the household. ,,>- -^!?.&'