Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Map
- I Senegambia from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century: a haven for incoming populations, a station for migrants on the move
- 1 Senegambia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: dependence on the Sudan and the Sahara
- 2 Social dynamics in Senegambia
- 3 The Atlantic trading system and the reformation of Senegambian states from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century
- 4 The partition of the Senegambian coast in the seventeenth century
- II Senegambia in the eighteenth century: the slave trade, ceddo regimes and Muslim revolutions
- III Senegambia in the first half of the nineteenth century: legitimate trade and sovereignty disputes
- IV Senegambia in the second half of the nineteenth century: colonial conquest and resistance movements
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Other books in the series
2 - Social dynamics in Senegambia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Map
- I Senegambia from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century: a haven for incoming populations, a station for migrants on the move
- 1 Senegambia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: dependence on the Sudan and the Sahara
- 2 Social dynamics in Senegambia
- 3 The Atlantic trading system and the reformation of Senegambian states from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century
- 4 The partition of the Senegambian coast in the seventeenth century
- II Senegambia in the eighteenth century: the slave trade, ceddo regimes and Muslim revolutions
- III Senegambia in the first half of the nineteenth century: legitimate trade and sovereignty disputes
- IV Senegambia in the second half of the nineteenth century: colonial conquest and resistance movements
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Other books in the series
Summary
The scarcity of documents makes it hard to outline the dynamics of political, social, and economic life in Senegambia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At that time the region was coming into direct contact with Europe by way of the Atlantic. Senegambian societies shared a common civilization in which political and social systems were closely knit, and both were based on an autonomous subsistence economy.
Politically, societies here were initially organized along kinship lines. Later they shifted to a monarchical system based on violence and inequality. The caste system which supported the hierarchical ordering of social life served to rationalize this inequality. On the whole, however, the selfsufficient domestic subsistence economy did much to attenuate peasant exploitation by an aristocracy often excluded from long-distance trade.
Political and social organization: the system of castes and orders
Senegambia contained two types of societies. The first, egalitarian in outlook, derived political power from lineage. The second, hierarchical in outlook, imposed monarchical power upon the lineage-based system. This was done within the rigid framework of Kafu or Lamanat authority, or under the authority of the Ardo. Under the Kafu and Lamanat systems, land rights were linked to political or religious power under the authority of a territorial chief. That same chief functioned as a community head. For nomadic peoples like the Peul, or for populations forced into migration, the Ardo was primarily the head of a community on the move, prior to its settlement on a given territory.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade , pp. 26 - 35Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997