Slavery in Senegal and Gambia

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

Long before the Atlantic slave trade dominated coastal economies, Senegambia and the wider Western Sudan were connected to trans-Saharan trade routes linking West Africa with North Africa and the Arab-Islamic world. When Europeans arrived in the fifteenth century, the region was already involved in the trans-Saharan slave trade, meaning slavery was already structurally integrated into local societies and trade networks.^[9]

Many enslaved people brought to Morocco through the trans-Saharan trade originated from the western Sudan, including regions around Timbuktu and Mali, with some connections to Senegambian trade networks.^[10]

In these systems, captives taken through warfare between Mandinka, Fulani and neighboring groups were transported northward across the Sahara toward markets in Morocco, Algeria and other parts of North Africa. Boubacar Barry's broader synthesis of Senegambian history highlights that Islamic states in the region both participated in and expanded these trans-Saharan slave networks, especially through jihad movements that increased the supply of captives. Over time, Fulani-led reform states and Mandinka aristocratic polities both contributed captives to these northern routes, making slavery a shared institution across competing political systems rather than a practice limited to a single group. North African Moors (Berber and Arab traders) and Saharan groups acquired slaves from the Sahel for labor, military service, concubinage and export across the Sahara. This trade predated European contact. Berber middlemen operated between the Senegal River valley and trans-Saharan routes, with Senegambia serving as a key source in the 15th–17th centuries, linking to Moorish emirates that pressured local states. Sahelian groups including Fulani, Wolof and Mandinka were victims of capture or trade northward.^{[11][page needed]}

Waalo was an extensive victim of the trans-Saharan slave trade, due to its strategic location in Senegal.^[12] It is believed that more slaves were being exported from Waalo north than they were exporting to the Europeans

The volume of slaves exported north into the desert from Waalo in the late seventeenth century was probably at least ten times as great as the volume of slaves exported into the Atlantic slave trade".^[13]

Senegal was a large origin of slaves coming from west Africa to the Maghreb.^[14] Because of this, Morocco historically had a large presence of West Africans slaves and free men alike in their army, Black Guard or Abīd al-Bukhari. The Timbuktu historian ‘Abd ar-Rahman as-Sa‘di wrote that Ahmad al-Mansur the ruler of Morocco 1578-1603 was the son of a Fulani concubine. The Gnawa people are believed to be descendent of Soninike, Fulani, Hausa, through linguistic analysis of their native tongue.^[14]

The haratins in Mauritania are a slave caste in Mauritania, with Most of them are related to ethnic groups such as Soninke, Fulani, Wolof and Bambara people.^{[15][unreliable source?]}

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

From the fifteenth century onward, Portuguese and later European traders expanded the Atlantic slave trade along the Senegambian coast, integrating existing African systems of slavery into global commerce. Both Mandinka and Fulani societies were affected: Mandinka elites in Kaabu supplied captives to coastal markets, while Fulani jihad states later became major inland suppliers through conquest and raiding. slavery in the Upper Guinea Coast pre-dated European contact and was transformed, rather than created, by Atlantic demand, underscoring continuity between internal African systems and Atlantic export slavery.^[16]

Within this overlapping Atlantic–Saharan system, Fulani and Mandinka populations were both enslavers and enslaved depending on shifting military power.^[17] Attacks by the Fula people on the Mandinka state of Kaabu. This produced a fluid frontier of captivity in which Fulani–Mandinka warfare, trans-Saharan trade and Atlantic slavery operated simultaneously and reinforced one another across the region.^[18]

Senegambia participated in the trans-Saharan slave trade. North African Moors (Berber and Arab traders) acquired slaves from the Sahel for labor, military service and concubinage across the Sahara. Portuguese navigators noted this existing trade upon reaching the Senegal River in 1444.^[19]

In 1455, the Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto, while visiting the Wolof kingdom of Cayor in present-day Senegal, was gifted by the local ruler Budomel a girl of around12 years old for the service of my chamber. Cadamosto traded seven horses and some woolen goods for about 100 slaves.^[20]

From the eighteenth century, Mandinka political formations such as Kaabu and expanding Fulani-led Islamic states in Futa Jallon entered into sustained cycles of warfare that produced large numbers of captives. Kaabu's ruling elites maintained a militarized slave system integrated into both regional trade and Atlantic commerce, while Fulani jihad movements framed their expansion as religious reform and political consolidation. slavery structurally embedded in state power, arguing that slavery was a central institution of political and economic life in Senegambia long before European demand intensified coastal exports.^[21]

Saint louis was established in 1659 by the French as a fort. Saint louis was an extensive slave trading hum, with most captives sold generally Wolof or Fulani,^[22][23] but encompassing all neighboring ethnicities.^[22]

Senegambia (not the surrounding regions) supplied a notable portion of captives to the Americas (estimates suggest around 6% or one in six in broader contexts, with hundreds of thousands embarked, especially in the 18th century at rates of about 6,000 per year). notable embarkation points included the Senegal and Gambia Rivers.^[24]

Because of Senegambia's advantageous position, Senegambia accounted for 50 percent of the enslaved population in Cape Verde from 1526-1550.^[11] Cape Verde slave systems were built through frequent exchanges between Cabo Verde and West africa, mostly Senebambia.^[25][26]

Notable Senegambians in the Americas are Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Omar ibn Said, Yarrow Mamout, Salih Bilali, Bilali Mohammed.