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
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- 45 Introduction:
- 46 Two Soninke “Slave” Descendants and Their Family Biographies
- 47 Without History? Interrogating “Slave” Memories in Ader (Niger)
- Index
46 - Two Soninke “Slave” Descendants and Their Family Biographies
from Part Nine - Living with the Past
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
- Part Seven Recorded Encounters with the Enslaved: Christian Workers in Africa
- Part Eight Documents from Muslim Africa
- Part Nine Living with the Past
- 45 Introduction:
- 46 Two Soninke “Slave” Descendants and Their Family Biographies
- 47 Without History? Interrogating “Slave” Memories in Ader (Niger)
- Index
Summary
This chapter describes a family biography of two Soninke slave descendants, Baba and Tamba, living in the Upper River Region, Eastern Gambia. In narrating their family history, they shed light on the course of emancipation, which in this area of West Africa lasted from the end of the nineteenth until at least the middle of the twentieth century. After the advent of legitimate trade in the early and middle part of the century, many other Soninke came to the Gambia to farm peanuts, which soon became the major export commodity of the Gambian valley. Today, former slaves and former masters are tied by customary relations, as is the case among other status groups: the komo are frequently called upon to perform particular kome tasks at ceremonies, such as fetching firewood (the men) and cooking the communal meals (the women).
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- Information
- African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade , pp. 522 - 535Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013