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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Slaves and Society in Western Africa, c.1445-c.1700 |
Author: | Fage, John D. |
Year: | 1980 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 21 |
Issue: | 3 |
Pages: | 289-310 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Central Africa West Africa |
Subjects: | traditional society slavery history 1000-1999 History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/181185 |
Abstract: | Published European first-hand accounts of the coastlands from Senegal to Angola for the period c. 1445 - c. 1700 are examined to see what light they throw on the extent to which institutions of servitude in pre-colonial aub-Saharan Africa were autonomous developments or a response to external demands for African slaves. It seems clear that when, in the early years of this period, European traders first approached societies along the western African coasts, they were commonly offered what they called 'slaves' in exchange for the goods they had brought. But it would be wrong to conclude from this that a slave class was necessarily a feature of western African coastal societies when those were first contacted by Europeans. Map, notes, sum. |