38 TheIslamicateContext
leading
Manchus in
privatebondage. Accordingly,
sometime
between 1615 and 1620,thebondservantswere formedinto
companies
andbattalionsonthe[Manchu]model.
TM
Thus,en-
slavedChinese
captives
oftheManchuswere
systematically
em-
ployed
assoldiersand"assumeda
key
role..,
as
aides-de-camp
to
highmilitarycommanders.
’’
Two
major differencesdistinguish
this
phenomenon
from
militaryslavery.In
thefirst
place,
theChinesewere
captives
of
war,not
acquired
slaves,and
therewas
nothing
planned
or
sys-
tematicintheiruse assoldiers;
theyjoined
the
fightingonly
when theManchusconsidered it
propitious.
Second,thisar-
rangement
lasted
only
a
very
shorttime.
Alreadyin
the
early
1630s, full-fledged
Chinesebattalions were
formed;
as in-
creasing
numbers ofChinesecameunderManchu
authority,
manyjoined
the
armyvoluntarily
andweretreatedasfreemen.
Thebondservant
companies
fellinto
decayby
thetimeofthe
Manchu
conquest
of
Peking
in1644.
West
Africa.
Severalelusivecasescomefromnon-IslamicWest
Africa. The
slave-kings
of the
eighteenth-century
Bambara
dynasty,theTon-Dyon,wereatleast
partially
Muslim,so
they
fall
under
the
Islamicaterubric.
7
Otherhintsof
military
slavery
comefromtheYoruba
kingdom
inthenineteenth
century.
TherewasnostandingYorubaarmy..,manychiefs,especiallyat
Ibadan...
brought
withtheir
contingents
household
slaves
trained
for
war,
these
constituting
thenearest
approach
to
regulartroops
among
theYoruba.
s
64.
Ibid.,p.
8.
65.P.M.Torbert,The
ChanglmperialHouseholdDepartment:A
Study
of
lOr-
ganization
and
PrincipalFunctions,1662-1796(Cambridge,Mass.,1977),
p.
55.
Seealso
Fang-ch’en
Ma,"Manchu-Chinese
SocialandEconomicConflictsinthe
Early
Ch’ing,"
Chinese Social
History,
trans. E. Z. Sun and
J.
de Francis
(Washington,D.C.,1956),pp.340-47.
66.
Spence,p.
9.
67.L.Tauxier,HistoiredesBambara
(Paris,1942),
pp.
80-90.
68.R.Smithin
J.
F.
A.AjayiandR.Smith,Yoruba
Warfare
intheNineteenth
Century,2d
ed.
(Cambridge,Eng.,1971),
pp.
13-14.