ABSTRACT
This chapter examines in some detail the effects of population growth in precapitalist Kasar Kano, where demographic expansion was sustained from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It argues that where population growth was maintained over a long period in agricultural regions of precapitalist West Africa where there was surplus land, the effects were parallel to those in other major regions of the world during similar periods. Population distribution in West Africa in the nineteenth century is brought to light by the reports of Europeans who traveled extensively in the region throughout the century. Evidence of high population density in Kasar Kano in the nineteenth century is copious. Imam Imoru, a renowned Islamic scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reported that Kano "is a highly populated land." The precise role played by such captives in the economy of Kano is not clear, but their contribution to agricultural production over the centuries stimulated population growth.
