Slave Soldiers and Islam_ The Genesis of a Military System - Daniel Pipes

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.