Over the last millennium, a number of factors, namely, kinship, migration, settlement, economics, war and colonial conquest, have intersected to produce a wide variety of social and political arrangements in West Africa. These arrangements varied from so-called acephalous (stateless) societies, to the sprawling sahelian empires, and in contemporary times, ‘modern’ nation-states. The different political arrangements usually reflect specific power, as well as social and cultural relations between different groups of peoples. This chapter is mainly concerned with different forms of inequalities of power, social hierarchy and exploitation expressed by those social and cultural relations. Its major focus will be on different forms of ‘unfree labor’ and ‘bonded labor’, namely, caste, enslaved and pawned peoples. It looks at how these forms are defined, produced and transformed, as well as the relationships that occurred between them.

This chapter primarily utilizes a conceptual framework that encompasses kinship, class and caste. Kinship offers a cultural framework for the construction of identity and citizenship, and for determining social exclusion. Class offers the opportunity to capture the status of people, especially unfree and bonded individuals, in the process of acquisition and distribution of economic resources and political power in different societies. In West Africa, class becomes increasingly significant with the expansion of mercantilist systems during the last five hundred years. Finally, caste provides insight into situations in which culture and political economy combine to produce unique forms of social bondage among certain West African groups. Historical examples are drawn very broadly from all over West Africa; however, there is greater emphasis on those societies in the upper Niger, Senegambian and Guinea coastal regions.

Kinsmen, minors and outsiders

Despite the tendency of anthropology to treat ‘kinship’ ahistorically, it nevertheless remains a valuable starting point for the discussion of culture, politics and social stratification in West African societies. Kinship exists in all human societies, though its use in political, economic and social affairs has waned in many parts of the world. In West Africa, kinship expressed a set of affective blood, matrimonial or fictive relations within a family, household, lineage or even an ethnic group. It was usually the prime determinant of a person's social identity.