I. THE ORIGIN AND EXTENT OF SLAVERY IN THE SEVERAL ECONOMIC ZONES OF
AFRICA
Slavery in Africa has existed from time immemorial, having arisen, not
from any outside influence, but from the very nature of the local
conditions. The three circumstances necessary to develop slavery are:
First, a country favored by the bounty of nature. Unless nature yields
generously it is impossible for a subject class to produce surplus
enough to maintain their masters. Where nature is niggardly, as in
many hunting districts, the labor of all the population is required to
meet the demands of subsistence.
Second, a country where the labor necessary to subsistence is, in some
way, very disagreeable. In such cases every man and woman will seek to
impose the task of production upon another. Among most primitive
agricultural peoples, the labor necessary to maintenance is very
monotonous and uninteresting, and no freeman will voluntarily perform
it. On the contrary, among hunting and fishing peoples, the labor of
maintenance is decidedly interesting. It partakes of the nature of
sport.
Third, a country where there is an abundance of free land. In such a
country it is impossible for one man to secure another to work for him
except by coercion; for when a man has a chance to use free land and
its products he will work only for himself, and take all the product
for himself rather than work for another and accept a bare subsistence
for himself. On the contrary, where all the land is appropriated a man
who does not own land has no chance to live except at the mercy of the
landlord. He is obliged to offer himself as a wage-earner or a tenant.
The landlord can obtain, therefore, all the help he may need without
coercion. Free labor is then economically advantageous to both the
landlord and the wage-earner, since the freedom of the latter inspires
greatly increased production. From these facts and considerations,
verified by history, it may be laid down as a sociological law that
where land is monopolized slavery necessarily yields to a regime of
freedom.[1]
In applying these principles to Africa it is necessary to take account
of the natural division of the continent into distinct economic zones.
Immediately under the equator is a wide area of heavy rainfall and
dense forest. The rapidity and rankness of vegetable growth renders
the region unsuited to agriculture. But the plentiful streams abound
in fish and the forests in animals and fruits. The banana and plantain
grow there in superabundance, and form the chief diet of the
inhabitants. This may be called, for convenience, the banana zone. To
the north and south of this zone are broad areas of less rainfall and
forest, with a dry season suitable to agriculture. These may be called
the agriculture zones. Still further to the north and south are areas
of very slight rainfall and almost no forests, suitable for pasturage.
Here cattle flourish in great numbers. These may be called the
pastoral zones. These zones stretch horizontally across the continent
except in case of the cattle zones, which, on account of the
mountainous character of East Africa, include the plateau extending
from Abyssinia to the Zambesi river. Each of these zones gives rise to
different types of men, and different characteristics of economic
organization, of family life, government, religion, and art.
In the banana zone nature is extremely bountiful. The people subsist
mostly upon the spontaneous products. A small expenditure of effort
will support a vast population. Agriculture is very little practiced.
Here the effort to live would seem to be easier and more agreeable
than in any other part of the world, so that man would not be under
pressure to enslave his kind. But alas, the work of gathering and
transporting the fruits, of the preparation and cooking them, as well
as the bringing home and cooking of the game, the building of houses,
etc., is not altogether pleasant. It is uninteresting, and the heat
and the humidity of the climate render it almost insupportable in
certain seasons and hours of the day. The repugnance to labor of
tropical people, whether natives or white immigrants, is proverbial.
Every one in the banana zone, therefore, seeks to shift his burden
upon another. As a first resort, he unloads it upon his wife, and she,
finding it grievous, cries out, and he then relieves her by procuring
additional wives. This kind of wife-slavery suffices for the support
of the population in this zone, but in the case of families of rank,
who have been accustomed to some degree of luxury, other helpers are
needed, and these form a class of domestic slaves. Now, in this zone,
the climatic conditions not only render labor disagreeable but tend to
curb aspiration, so that people do not acquire a taste or demand for
products which minister to the higher nature. Lassitude keeps the
standard of living down to a low level. Hence, in this zone the labor
of women suffices, for the most part, for the maintenance of the
population. Since land is free and no one will voluntarily work for
another, such additional workers as are needed must be obtained and
bound to the master by coercion.
In this zone two very remarkable consequences follow from the fact
that very few slaves are needed for workers. The first is the practice
of cannibalism, once universal in this zone, and still in vogue
throughout vast regions. The bountiful food supply attracts immigrants
from all sides, and the result is a condition of chronic warfare. When
one tribe defeats another the question arises, What is to be done
with the prisoners? As they cannot be profitably employed as
industrial workers, they are used to supplement a too exclusive
vegetable diet. Wars come to be waged expressly for the sake of
obtaining human flesh for food. The Monbuttu eat a part of their
captives fallen in battle, and butcher and carry home the rest for
future consumption. They bring home prisoners not to reduce to slavery
but as butcher-meat to garnish future festivals.
A second consequence of the limited demand for slaves is that war
captives are sold to foreigners. Adjacent to the banana zone are zones
of agriculture, where slaves are in great request, and, during the
European connection with the slave trade, the normal demand for slaves
in this zone was greatly heightened. Among the Niam Niam all prisoners
belong to the monarch. He sells the women and keeps the children for
slaves. Hence, the banana zone has been the great reservoir for
supplying slaves to other parts of the world. Hundreds of thousands of
slaves came from this zone to the West Indies, and to the slave states
of North and South America. In Dahomey and Ashanti war captives used
to be sold "en bloc" to white traders at so much per capita.
In the agricultural zones to the north and south nature is more
niggardly, though she yields enough, when coaxed by the hoe, to permit
of a large class of parasites. The labor of maintenance is more
onerous than in the banana zone. While the heat and humidity are not
so great the work is more grievous because of its greater quantity and
monotony. The motive to shift the work is, therefore, very strong and
the demand for slaves is very great. In fact, the ratio of slaves to
freemen is about three or four to one. As land is free and the
resources open, the only means of obtaining workers is by coercion.
The supply of slaves is kept up by kidnapping, by warfare upon weak
tribes, by the purchase of children from improvident parents, and by
forfeiture of freedom through crime.
In the cattle zones farther to the north and south, nature is still
less bountiful. The labor of maintenance requires a combination of
the pastoral art, agriculture and trade. A slave class could not
maintain itself and at the same time support a large master class. The
labor of a large proportion of the population is, in one way or
another, necessary to existence. The nature of the work, so far as it
is pastoral or trading, is not especially irksome, but rather
fascinating. Tending cattle is full of excitement, and is a kind of
substitute for hunting; while trading is an occupation which appeals
with wonderful force to all the races of Africa. The impulse to shift
labor in the cattle zones is, therefore, very slight, except in the
case of a few populations subsisting largely upon agriculture. The
ruling classes, therefore, instead of owning many personal slaves,
make a practice of subjugating the agricultural groups in such a way
as to constitute a kind of feudalism. As land is free the enslaved
groups can be made to serve the free class only by coercion.
Similar conditions among the natural races all over the world give
rise in the same way to the institution of slavery. Ellis thinks that
slavery probably originated under the regime of exogamy where the sons
born of captured women formed the slave class because they were
considered inferior to the sons born of the women of the group.[2] But
it is quite evident that slavery originated primarily from economic
conditions. For further sociological explanations of slavery in the
several zones the reader is referred to the author's first and second
volumes on the Negro races.