Kanem is presented as a Central Sudanese kingdom with no gold to offer in long-distance commerce. Its trade was consequently based mainly on slaves. This placed Kanem within a different economic zone from the Western Sudan, where gold was the dominant commodity and slave trading was more limited in scale.

The route from Kanem toward Tripoli passed through Zawila, which became the most famous Saharan centre for the slave trade. Kanem’s commercial position helps explain the contrast between the Central and Western Sudan: gold-based exchange depended on security along the route, whereas an intensive slave trade was associated with continuous raids and hostile relations between northern raiders and southern communities.

The passage links these patterns to the political history of Kanem and Bornu. It suggests that their enduring antagonism toward peoples described as ‘savage’ on their southern frontiers, and the absence of neo-Sudanic states immediately inland from Bornu, were connected to the dynamics of raiding and enslavement. Bornu is characterized here as remaining pagan until the nineteenth century.