The slave trade within the African continent 155They did away with all the merchants who had previously passed through
their territories to take their slaves to the coast to sell them to the European
slave-traders. From that time on, they became involved in slave-dealing on a
large scale.
Periodically they would send troops into the neighbouring countries to
capture slaves whom they would then sell in order to secure arms and other
European goods. In Ashanti and Dahomey the slave trade became a State
monopoly. Most of the slaves were now sold by the State and no longer by
private individuals.
In Central and East Africa the internal slave trade was controlled by
foreigners. The Portuguese led expeditions inland. From ancient times the
Arabs had specialized in hunting down Africans and reducing them to slavery
Slave raids and the search for ivory were the two main activities of the Arabs,
in East Africa.^27
Alongside this slave trade which served to export captives to America
or Asia there was another trade network within the continent itself which
helped to meet local labour demands.
For the expansion of the Atlantic trade did not bring about the collapse
of the old trading traditions. Although the economic nerve-centres had shifted
from the hinterland to the coast, the former trade relations between Black
Africa and North Africa were as lively as ever. Only luxury goods were traded.
Lacourbe reports that at the end of the seventeenth century an Arab horse was
worth twenty-five slaves.^28 Pruneau de Pommegorge claims to have seen an
African chief buy a horse for 'a hundred slaves and a hundred oxen'.^29 The
emphasis on horses was due to the fact that war had become a truly lucrative
industry and cavalry necessarily played an important part in military strategy.
Slaves were also used in marriage negotiations as part of the 'bride
price'. In princely marriages, the bride price was mainly composed of slaves,
whereas for commoners it consisted simply of a handful of tobacco leaves and
a few animals. Since local custom did not allow mastes to part with their own
household slaves, they would buy trade slaves or ordinary slaves to give away
to their future parents-in-law.
At the time of the overseas trade, slaves captured in raids or purchased,
or prisoners of war, were not all sold to the European slave-traders. Some of
them were bought by Africans and remained in Africa. They then became part
of their master's domestic slave household. But since they had not been born
under their master's roof, they were called ordinary slaves. Admittedly they
did the same work as the household slaves, but their status was inferior, for
their master could sell them without incurring any recrimination, whereas
household slaves could not be parted with unless it was absolutely necessary.^30
Ordinary and trade slaves were regarded as foreigners. They had virtually
no legal protection in common law against arbitrary treatment by their masters,