Power Relations and Social Interactions among Ibadan Slaves, 1850-1900
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11203204 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Toyin Falola (0000-0002-2457-2930, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Issue | 16 |
| Pages | 95 |
| Publication date | 1987-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Economic History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0145-2258 • E-ISSN: 2163-9108 |
| Publisher | University of Wisconsin Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3601271 |
| OpenAlex | W1040869609 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 2 |
Research on slavery in Yorubaland has progressed rather slowly. Discussion on Yoruba society and the trans-Atlantic slave trade has been very brief,' and only Adeniyi Oroge has examined at some length the institution of domestic slavery with reference mainly to the nineteenth century.2 Several questions are yet to be posed, such as the precise impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on different communities and socio-political institutions and the nature of domestic slavery before, during and after the trans-Atlantic slave trade. There are also no studies on the Yoruba region which have benefited from the empirical and theoretical insights provided in recent works by Paul E. Lovejoy and a few others.3 More important, studies on Yoruba domestic slavery have concentrated on the relationship between slaves and their masters, with the primary motivation of showing the differences between the mild African system and European chattel slavery.4 There has never been an attempt, as is done in this article, to examine the relationships which existed among Yoruba slaves. This is crucial both for the understanding of master-slave relations, which have been treated in very static analysis, and for a further understanding of class relations as well as the flexibility in class structure. The dearth of data constitutes the greatest limitation to the present study. The difficulties of investigating social history in precolonial Africa are already well known. The problems become acute when slavery is being examined. In the case of Yorubaland during the nineteenth century, contemporary written sources composed mostly by European missionaries, traders, and British officials are mainly descriptions of how slaves were treated and the few rights they enjoyed. Most of the writers had little or no contact with slaves. Missionaries and travellers, for instance, were more interested in dialogue with the political elite than with slaves, and the avenues for them to interact with slaves were few. Missionaries had more opportunities for contact than any other group, since they settled in some towns and hoped to draw converts from among the people. Missionaries were, however, more interested in the urgent task of evangelization than in the less rewarding task of recording for posterity detailed information on slavery, an institution they despised
Geography · Physics · Political economy · Political science · Power (physics · Social relation · Social science · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1994 - 2018 (25) |
| Highly cited | No |