Africana Periodical Literature 
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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | The Slave Trade and Decentralized Societies |
| Author: | Klein, Martin A. |
| Year: | 2001 |
| Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
| Volume: | 42 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Period: | March |
| Pages: | 49-65 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | West Africa Africa |
| Subjects: | political systems slave trade History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3647215 |
| Abstract: | This article, which is based on a review of the literature on the slave trade and decentralized societies, argues that the analyses of Andrew Hubbell and Walter Hawthorne in this issue of 'The Journal of African History' can be extended to a general interpretation of the impact of the slave trade on decentralized societies. First, decentralized - or 'stateless' - societies usually defended themselves effectively, forcing slavers both to extend their networks further into the interior and to devise new ways of obtaining slaves. Second, agents of the slave trade were often successful in developing linkages within targeted societies that exploited tensions and hostilities within them. Although the 'predatory State thesis', which links the formation of highly militarized States in West Africa to the increase in demand for slaves and treats decentralized societies as reservoirs within these more powerful military formations, is not necessarily wrong, it needs to be modified. The assumption that western Africa can be simply divided between predatory societies and their victims is not valid. The experiences of the Igbo and Bobangi are different in that there was no defensive phase. Among the Igbo, kidnapping and local conflicts rather than slave raids were the major source of slaves. Most of the Bobangi slaves were procured by trade; there were no conquering armies on the Congo River, only local processes of enslavement. Notes, ref., sum. |
