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Slavery and the Slave Trade in Dār Fūr

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

R. S. O'Fahey
Affiliation:
University of Bergen

Extract

The institutions of slavery, slave raiding and the slave trade were fundamental in the rise and expansion of the Keira Sultanate of Dār Fūr. The development of a long-distance trade in slaves may be due to immigrants from the Nile, who probably provided the impetus to state formation. This process may be remembered in the ‘Wise Stranger’ traditions current in the area. The slave raid or ghazwa, penetrating into the Baḥr al-Ghazāl and what is now the Central African Republic, marked the triumph of Sudanic state organization over the acephalous societies to the south.

The slaves, who were carefully classified, were not only exported to Egypt and North Africa, but also served the sultans and the title-holding elite as soldiers, labourers and bureaucrats. In the latter role, the slaves began to encroach on the power of traditional ruling groups within the state; the conflict between the slave bureaucrats and the traditional ruling elite lasted until the end of the first Keira Sultanate in 1874.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

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22 The position of the sultān al-ghazwa can be paralleled with that of maqdūm, a royal commissioner sent out on specific missions. While on service the maqdūm took with him certain insignia, such as drums, customarily associated with the sultan alone. Upon his return he reverted to his former rank. Nachtigal, , Sahara and Sudan, iv, 309.Google Scholar

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24 Al-Tūnisī accompanied a ghazwa under malik ‘Abd al-Karīm b. Khamīs 'Armān, who owed him money, which stayed in the south for three months. al-Tūnisī, Tashhīdh, 329, Darfour, 357. Jabāyyūa was the term used in Dār Fūr for the grain tax collected by officials called jabbāpyyūn. Lethem, G. L., Colloquial Arabic, Shuwa Dialect of Bornu, Nigeria and of the Region of Lake Chad (London, 1920), gives ‘tax on pagans’ for jabāya. Its meaning in this context is not clear.Google Scholar

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36 I am grateful to Sayyid Abdel Ghaffar Mohammed for this suggestion.

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44 Fāshir, a word of unknown linguistic origin, was the area in front of the sultan's camp or palace, where he gave public audience, and then by extension it came to mean the whole palace and household. The use of fāshir has been recorded in Bornu, Baqirmi, Wadai (where it also meant the sultan's council) and Sinnār.

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60 Nachtigal, , Sahara and Sudan, iv, 284–7.Google Scholar Al-Tūnisī, Tashhīdh, 86, Darfour, 68 in describing the causes of Tayrāb's invasion of Kordofan hints at this rift, see O'Fahey, R. S. & Spaulding, J. L., ‘Hāshim and the Musabba'āt,’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xxxv, 2, 1972, 327–8.Google Scholar

61 The conflict was still alive in 1873, see Nachtigal, Sahara and Sudan, iv, 70–1.

62 Al-Tūnisī, Tashhīdh, 103, Darfour, 114.Google Scholar

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65 Al-Tūnisī, , Tashhīdh, 63, Darfour, 45 denies the story then current that Kurra was born of a palace slave and says he was born a freeman. Nachtigal, Sahara and Sudan, iv, 294 calls him a Tunjur and a freeman, and Abū Ādam 'Abdall¯hl, interview Nyala, June 1969, a Turūj, i.e. a slave.Google Scholar

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68 Thus Nachtigal, Sahara and Sudan, iv, 328–9 but it is notable that the three abbo shaykh daali whom he describes as freeman all came after Kurra, himself a freeman according to Nachtigal. Informants in Dār Fūr were certain that Kurra was either born a slave or was enslaved later, and it may be that after the revolt of Kurra the sultans thought it desirable not to confine the office to slaves.

69 On Kurra in Kordofan, see O'Fahey and Spaulding, ‘Hāshim and the Musabba'āt’, 330–1.

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