ABSTRACT
Since slavery as a social class, caste or group, established as part of society, has existed for centuries over much of Africa, it is not surprising that traces of the old sort of slavery survive. They are particularly noticeable in the Sahara Desert and on its fringes, among peoples such as the Moors and Tuareg. A black Tuareg who looks after the nomads’ herds and helps in domestic work in the tents, who calls himself a ‘slave’ and is so called by everyone else, and who is treated as property even if treated well and never sold, may seem to be unambiguously a slave. Slaves have had a less degraded, less obviously servile status among the Tuareg and the Fulani.
