038840engo 2

168 /. B. Kake

the Arabs, who between 1840 and the turn of the century transformed it into

a ruthless, flourishing and well-organized business.

Travel conditions and slave markets

During these voyages, the slaves were treated with great cruelty by the Muslim

traders. The ghellabis (slave-traders) were utterly inhuman, with more regard

for their camels than for their black slaves.

Since the camels in the caravans were heavily loaded with their cargoes

of water, gum arabic, elephant tusks, etc., all the black slaves, with the exception

of children under the age of 10 or 12 had to follow on foot. Any who lagged

behind from sheer exhaustion were goaded on by the ghellabis with a whip or

kurbash.

The caravan would usually set off at dawn and not halt until evening.

Water was parsimoniously rationed out, and the wretched slaves would often

drink only once a day. They died more from thirst than exhaustion. Berlioux

recounts the horror of those desert crossings :

Only by seeing the caravans in the immense solitude of the desert can one imagine

how much the heat and the privations must have added to the suffering of those slaves

newly deprived of their freedom.... Along that interminable route there are a few

oases, but sometimes there is nothing but stark desert for several days on end. This is

where the slave caravans suffer their greatest losses, not only from exhaustion, but

because the slave-traders prefer to economize their provisions rather than save the

lives of a few of these poor wretches.^6

Those who were shipped off to be sold in Arabia or the Persian Gulf Emirates

were scarcely better off. They were transported in boats known as dhows.

Dhows were usually fairly small, and since they had to cater for a relatively

heavy traffic, the slaves were packed into them and made the journey in

extremely arduous conditions.

When merchants spoke of the arrival of a caravan, they would assess its

size by the number of heads, amking no distinction between camels and slaves.

The leader of the caravan used the same expressions to goad on the slaves as

the camels.

When a Turk bought a black slave, Frédéric Cailliaud wrote, he would

have him circumcised and then choose some bizarre name for him, for fear of

giving him a name that a man might bear.^7

Slaves, when not captured during raids, were acquired at markets special-

izing in the trade. Some of these were to be found in Black Africa, like the one

at Kuka (a town in the Chad region), whose slave market was described by

many European travellers in the nineteenth century.

Throughout the year it would be teeming with unfortunate creatures of