DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0296
280
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
Slavery. Slaves were acquired by capture or purchase, or were received as payment.
Prisoners taken by the vassals of one chief in a fight with the partisans of another chief
became slaves. Slave raids were also made by the Wayao upon the weaker Anyanja or
again expeditions were sent out hundreds of miles away into the Chipeta country to buy
slaves.
Slaves were a man’s goods and chattels, to do with mainly as he pleased, but no man
might kill a slave without bringing the case before his chief and obtaining consent. While
some were bought and sold and sometimes found their way into a slave caravan bound for
the coast, many, perhaps the majority, lived the life of ordinary individuals in the villages.
A man who was unhappy in a village and wished to escape from his vassaldom might run
away to another village and there commit some act so that he might be claimed as a slave.
The custom was to go to the village and sit by the site of a house which had been pulled
down after the death of the occupant, and the saying is, “He has been called by the dead
man’s spirit.”
Many a slave has become an important man in the village and slaves were often the
trusted advisers of their chiefs, but there was no means of becoming a freeman. Neither
a slave himself nor a second party could purchase his freedom. A slave capturing another
man in warfare, for instance, could not ask for his own freedom in exchange for his captive,
but anyone so taken became, in a way, the slave of a slave, and the master could not sell
the second slave without the permission of the slave captor. An old slave might often be
allowed to do just as he pleased and to all intents and purposes was a free man, but he was
never actually freed. A slave might earn a return for work done for others than his master;
part of this he would probably give to his master, but there was no regular tax upon such
earnings.
The idea in accumulating slaves seems to have been to increase the population of the
villages and hence their power and progeny. This is borne out by the fact that marriage
between free men and slaves was allowed. Marriage between a free man and a slave woman
was unaccompanied by any ceremony and was therefore rather in the nature of recognized
concubinage. Such a wife, if unsatisfactory, could be sold out of the village, but generally
she was well treated. The children of two slaves were of course born into slavery; the
children of a slave woman by a freeman husband, were not quite emancipated, as the father
could not remove the child from the village of the slave mother’s master, and in very ex-
treme cases, it might be sold by him.
Women might marry slave husbands and often a master married his daughters to his
slave men whom he thought well of. This amounted to a guarantee to the slave that he
would never be parted with. A woman with a slave husband could not leave him infor-
mally; she could not sell him, inasmuch as women have no property.
Land Ownership. The ownership of all land was vested in the chief, but he appeared to
hold it in surety for all the people over which he ruled. Headmen had no land rights.
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
Slavery. Slaves were acquired by capture or purchase, or were received as payment.
Prisoners taken by the vassals of one chief in a fight with the partisans of another chief
became slaves. Slave raids were also made by the Wayao upon the weaker Anyanja or
again expeditions were sent out hundreds of miles away into the Chipeta country to buy
slaves.
Slaves were a man’s goods and chattels, to do with mainly as he pleased, but no man
might kill a slave without bringing the case before his chief and obtaining consent. While
some were bought and sold and sometimes found their way into a slave caravan bound for
the coast, many, perhaps the majority, lived the life of ordinary individuals in the villages.
A man who was unhappy in a village and wished to escape from his vassaldom might run
away to another village and there commit some act so that he might be claimed as a slave.
The custom was to go to the village and sit by the site of a house which had been pulled
down after the death of the occupant, and the saying is, “He has been called by the dead
man’s spirit.”
Many a slave has become an important man in the village and slaves were often the
trusted advisers of their chiefs, but there was no means of becoming a freeman. Neither
a slave himself nor a second party could purchase his freedom. A slave capturing another
man in warfare, for instance, could not ask for his own freedom in exchange for his captive,
but anyone so taken became, in a way, the slave of a slave, and the master could not sell
the second slave without the permission of the slave captor. An old slave might often be
allowed to do just as he pleased and to all intents and purposes was a free man, but he was
never actually freed. A slave might earn a return for work done for others than his master;
part of this he would probably give to his master, but there was no regular tax upon such
earnings.
The idea in accumulating slaves seems to have been to increase the population of the
villages and hence their power and progeny. This is borne out by the fact that marriage
between free men and slaves was allowed. Marriage between a free man and a slave woman
was unaccompanied by any ceremony and was therefore rather in the nature of recognized
concubinage. Such a wife, if unsatisfactory, could be sold out of the village, but generally
she was well treated. The children of two slaves were of course born into slavery; the
children of a slave woman by a freeman husband, were not quite emancipated, as the father
could not remove the child from the village of the slave mother’s master, and in very ex-
treme cases, it might be sold by him.
Women might marry slave husbands and often a master married his daughters to his
slave men whom he thought well of. This amounted to a guarantee to the slave that he
would never be parted with. A woman with a slave husband could not leave him infor-
mally; she could not sell him, inasmuch as women have no property.
Land Ownership. The ownership of all land was vested in the chief, but he appeared to
hold it in surety for all the people over which he ruled. Headmen had no land rights.