ABSTRACT
The condition of servitude by black Africans in Egypt is hardly known. The few personal histories of enslaved blacks, virtually all of which have been published in European languages,1 concentrate on the mechanics of the slave trade in Sudanic states and the traumatic experience slaves endured in order to reach markets in Egypt.2 In the nineteenth century, short stories about slaves became a popular literary form among Europeans who visited the Nile Valley, but the heavy dose of romance in the retelling has made it difficult to separate fact from fiction.3 The best evidence, first-hand accounts written by slaves or former slaves-such as have been written in this country by former slaves-is missing from modern Arabic literature. For a portrait of slave life, however, recourse may be made to the archive of the religious courts of Cairo, the Mahkama al-Shar‘iyya, which contains a mass of information about slave market conditions, servitude, freedom, marriage, inheritance and estate. The following study is based largely on documents culled from that archive in the course of research on a different but related subject, the trans-Saharan trade of Egypt in the eighteenth century.4 The Mahkama archive holdings show that an in-depth study of slavery in Egypt can be-and deserves to be-written.5
