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

SlavesinWar:TheHistoricalRecord

39

Recruitmentseemstohavebeen

arbitrary,

9

buttheslavesre-

mainedintheruler’s

entourage.

In

Oyo,

theseslavesmade

up

a

large

part

ofthe

cavalry,

and

they

seem tohave

undergone

training.They

formedthe

onlycavalry

in

the

region

andstood

on

year-roundduty.

y

Theseslavesoldierswere

perhapscompa-

rabletoMuslim

military

slaves,buttheinformationaboutthem

istoo

scanty

to

judge.

Also,theiruse

may

wellhavebeen

adapted

fromthenumerousIslamicate

military

slave

systemsofthearea.

TheBritishWestIndies.

By

farthemostdramaticandbest-studied

caseofslavesoldiersoutsideIslamdomcomesfromtheCarib-

beanIslandsinthetimeofthe

Napoleonic

Wars,1795-1815.

Analysis

ofthisslave

corps

clarifies

many

ofthe

differencesbe-

tween

militaryslavery

andotherslavesandwarfare.

TheBritish

government

createdtheWestIndia

Regiments

in

1795

bypurchasing

a

miscellanyofslavesand

outfitting

themas

a

military

unit.ThelocalsettlersofBritishdescentrefusedtosell

the

army

theirownslaves,

forcing

the

imperialgovernment

to

bring

slavesfrom

Africaforthe

Regiments.

It

brought

abouta

thousandslaveseach

year

untiltheabolitionofthe

slavetradein

1808.When,for

legalreasons,

itwas

advantageous

tofreethese

slaves,some10,000ofthemweremanumittedinonefell

swoop

in 1807. Asunitsofthe

imperial

British

army,

these

troops

proved

themselves an

unqualified

success

When the wars

ended,

they

were

disbanded

and the

West India

Regiments

disappeared.

1

These soldiers shared some

noteworthy

characteristics in

common withmilitary slaves in Islamdom, amongthem the

following:

69.E.A.

Orage,

"TheInstitutionof

SlaveryinYorubaland,withParticular

ReferencetotheNineteenth

Century,"(Ph.D.diss.,Universityof

Birmingham,

1971),

p.

20.

70. Ibid.,
    p.

66.Forothernon-MuslimAfricanuseofslavesin

warfare,seethe

curious

applicationsbytheDuala(inR.A.Austen,

"Slaveryamong

CoastalMid-

dlemen:TheDualaof

Cameroon,"

Slavery

in

Africa,

ed.S.MiersandI.

Kopytoff

(Madison,Wis.,

1977),p.315),

andin

eighteenth-centuryKongo

(J.

Vansina,

Kingdoms
of

theSavannah[Madison,Wis.,1966],

pp.193-98).

71.

Buckley,chap.

3;

pp.

55,79,138-39,134-38.