Book contents
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword Beyond the Printed Word
- Introduction Finding the African Voice
- Part One Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Part Two The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
- Part Three Documenting Our Own Histories and Cultural Practices
- Part Four Slavery Observed: European Travelers’ Accounts
- Part Five Administrative Records
- Part Six Legal Records
- 29 Introduction:
- 30 The Expulsion of Dalu ModuA Muslim Trader in Anti-Slavery Freetown
- 31 “Being a Slave, I Was Afraid...”
- 32 Interpreting Gold Coast Supreme Court Records, SCT 5/4/19 Regina (Queen) vs. Quamina Eddoo
- 33 A Tale of Slavery and Beyond in a British Colonial Court Record
- 34 Aballow’s Story
- 35 A Case of Kidnapping and Child Trafficking in Senegal, 1916
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- Index
31 - “Being a Slave, I Was Afraid...”
Excerpt from a Case of Slave-Dealing in the Colony of the Gambia (1893)
from Part Six - Legal Records
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
Book contents
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword Beyond the Printed Word
- Introduction Finding the African Voice
- Part One Remembering Slavery and the Slave Trade
- Part Two The Verbal Arts and Everyday Objects
- Part Three Documenting Our Own Histories and Cultural Practices
- Part Four Slavery Observed: European Travelers’ Accounts
- Part Five Administrative Records
- Part Six Legal Records
- 29 Introduction:
- 30 The Expulsion of Dalu ModuA Muslim Trader in Anti-Slavery Freetown
- 31 “Being a Slave, I Was Afraid...”
- 32 Interpreting Gold Coast Supreme Court Records, SCT 5/4/19 Regina (Queen) vs. Quamina Eddoo
- 33 A Tale of Slavery and Beyond in a British Colonial Court Record
- 34 Aballow’s Story
- 35 A Case of Kidnapping and Child Trafficking in Senegal, 1916
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- Index
Summary
For most of the nineteenth century, British control of the Gambia River was limited to a number of small enclaves. Slave labor was crucial both to the household economy and the expansion of commercial groundnut cultivation, which had boomed along the river in the second part of the century. This chapter describes the nature of slavery and slave-dealing in Gambia. It presents the testimonies of Yahling Dahbo, Dado Bass, and Maladdo Mangah in light of the particular vulnerability that enslaved women experienced. Yahling, Dado, and Maladdo together provide detailed recollections of their life in slavery. Domestic slavery could indeed have a benign face that mitigated the intrinsic vulnerability of having being enslaved. Legal abolition did not completely erase the social boundary between former slaves and masters, as slave origins still carry significance in contemporary Gambian social life.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade , pp. 343 - 359Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013