Although historians continue to trace the existence of the Atlantic slave trade back to African domestic slavery that was part of social structure, my investigation into African social stratification in the kingdoms of Senegambia uncovers significant differences between slavery as practiced within the Atlantic trade and so-termed African domestic slavery. The chapter’s objective is to affirm the absence of a correlation between the two forms of slavery. First, it questions the extent to which inegalitarian social structures, of which domestic slavery was a part, resulted in an openness to the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trades. It argues that inegalitarian societies were in fact closed to their development into commercial slavery. Social stratification in West Africa, with its connected domestic slavery, was not designed to provide a reserve of captives, in other words. Rather, as exemplified by the case of Gajaaga, the primary function of inegalitarian social structures was to integrate people into society as dependents and kin. The second line of inquiry pursues how, with the presence of the Atlantic slave trade, this primary function dissolved in certain cases. Kingdoms that adhered to the Atlantic slave trade ceased their integration of these individuals, leaving them as easy prey for slave-hunting.

Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than fifteen million people were uprooted from West Africa and enslaved in the trans-Saharan and transatlantic worlds of slavery. The ethnic state of Gajaage, located in the West African hinterland, offered a doorway to the Atlantic Ocean and played a central role in the large-scale trade system that connected the histories of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Focusing on the Soninke of Gajaaga, Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré demonstrates how their resistance to the slave trades led to the formation of a united community bound by an awareness of identity. This original study expands our understanding of the various modes of resistance West Africans employed to stem the encroaching tide of Arab imperializing efforts, European mercantile capitalism, and the Atlantic slave trade, whilst also highlighting how ethnic and religious identities were constructed and mobilized in the region.

The chapter describes the involvement of local traders who mastered the political and diplomatic networks of Senegambia, as well as the social realities of Gajaaga. Unlike the French companies, which depended on Europeans, many of whom faced constant political and social difficulties in Gajaaga, the British opted for local traders or at least for foreigners who had a command of local languages and Arabic, which was spoken fluently in Upper Senegal. This chapter depicts the flexibility and the decision-making power of African agents such as Ayouba Diallo, revealing their intellectual and social capacities to create networks within the European aristocracies through diplomatic negotiations. The history of Ayouba is known to historians only by virtue of the unusual character of his enslavement and his peregrinations upon returning to Africa after being freed. The chapter goes back over an unusual phase in Diallos life: his political and diplomatic activities in Gajaaga; his connections in Bundu and London; and his involvement in the rivalries between England and France in Gajaaga. It shows that what lent the sixteenth to the eighteenthh centuries their cosmopolitan, globalized aspect was the expertise and know-how of individuals familiar with navigating the diverse networks of the Atlantic system, Diallo being a prime example.

The Soninke diaspora and Ethnic State arose within the context of the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trades. The geographical space of Gajaaga, its populations, and society are described in detail to provide the necessary context for understanding the Ethnic State of Gajaaga as both a political space and as the Soninke people’s homeland. It shows how the Soninke Ethnic State was geographically delimited by the Soninke people’s distribution, making physical and ethnic borders coterminous. The chapter also describes how Soninke society was largely controlled by an aristocracy of nobles. Primary among them were the Bacili, descendants of the founders of Gajaaga and warrior princely families, the state of Gajaaga being built through military conquest. The administrative organization, in turn, was based on a political system whose codes and structures were found in several societies throughout Upper Senegal, Upper Gambia, and the Niger Delta. This political system was both decentralized and gerontocratic, meaning the throne was handed down to the eldest members of the royal family. As a consequence, political rivalries developed between the different royal families. This rivalry, referred to as faabaremmaxu, was codified in Soninke political culture and was settled by the Kafundo, or royal assembly.

The chapter analyzes the organization of the Soninke’s resistance and its various forms. It shows how through high tariff barriers, taxes on caravans of captives, taxes on trips to the gold mines, assassinations, political alliances, and control over the circulation of information, the Bacili weakened French trading activities and also dissuaded slave traders in captives from entering Gajaaga. Assassinations in particular were a frequent strategy used by the Soninke in Gajaaga to eliminate French agents and their local allies from negotiations. The Bacili additionally utilized tactics of dispersion and impediment. Dispersing captives consisted of attacking the caravans and freeing the captives, allowing them to escape to Gajaaga, Bambuxu or Futa Toro. The Soninke also deliberately impeded Europeans commercial operations. The Bacili held back European ships in villages for as long as possible by stretching out negotiations on the taxes required for passage, thus exposing them to epidemics, of which they died in large numbers.

Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than fifteen million people were uprooted from West Africa and enslaved in the trans-Saharan and transatlantic worlds of slavery. The ethnic state of Gajaage, located in the West African hinterland, offered a doorway to the Atlantic Ocean and played a central role in the large-scale trade system that connected the histories of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Focusing on the Soninke of Gajaaga, Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré demonstrates how their resistance to the slave trades led to the formation of a united community bound by an awareness of identity. This original study expands our understanding of the various modes of resistance West Africans employed to stem the encroaching tide of Arab imperializing efforts, European mercantile capitalism, and the Atlantic slave trade, whilst also highlighting how ethnic and religious identities were constructed and mobilized in the region.

Despite the backdrop of violence in the encounter between Almoravids, the French, and the Soninke, it is still possible to identify the Soninke legacy of a political and social organization which was economically self-sufficient, built on a matricentric unit of production dominated by women. The chapter argues that this matricentric unit of production can be traced to the survival of a matriarchy system in Gajaaga. Most types of social structures in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in Gajaaga and its hinterland, consisted of syncretism between Islam and animism favoring patriarchy. In fact, patriarchy in Gajaaga was new and borrowed from Islam, which in turn was brought in by the trans-Saharan slave trade. As such, it overshadowed the previous system of matriarchy, which we can dredge up from the past by analyzing the present existence of autonomy and power held by women in the Soninke socio-economic organization. By analyzing European travelers’ accounts of the West African ecological environment, the relation between communities and nature, and the agricultural fields crossed by Europeans in the Upper Senegal river region, we can determine the existence of the matriarchal character in Gajaaga.

In this chapter, I detail the historical context of sub-Saharan societies from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, when they were caught between trans-Saharan and transatlantic trade patterns. I examine Arab and European colonial expansion, demonstrating how their common goal in the West African interior was to control the sources of gold and captives. Colonial expansion from Portugal began in the fifteenth century, thus overlapping with that of the Saharan Berbers and Arabs, which persisted from the eleventh into the eighteenth century. This colonial expansion, be it from Arabs or Europeans, had profound repercussions for the geopolitics of the Senegal River, Gajaaga, and the hinterland. Analyzing it offers us a better understanding of violence as the driving force behind the slave trade. At the same time, within this context of slavery and colonial violence, the populations were able to call on a variety of resistance strategies that allowed them to retain decision-making power and room for maneuver. In Gajaaga’s case, for instance, by resisting colonial incursions the Soninke not only maintained territorial sovereignty, but also preserved themselves from slavery. Scrutinizing such forms of resistance likewise reveals a great deal about the feelings of identity that underlay them.