ABSTRACT

There have been essentially several views expressed as to the relationship between slavery in western African societies and the European-conducted trade in African slaves to the Americas. Published European first-hand accounts of the coastlands from Senegal to Angola for the period c. 1445-c. 1700 are examined to see what light they throw on the extent to which institutions of servitude in pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter undertakes a systematic exploration of the information presented by European observers relating to pre-colonial societies along the whole coastline of western Africa on which the Europeans drew for their Atlantic slave trade, from the Senegal in the north to Angola in the south. More than one observer was to say of an African society something like 'all men are slaves to the king'. The major exception would seem to be the Ivory Coast, which also seems unique in that Europeans apparently neither saw nor were offered slaves there.