XVIIIᵉ siècle – XIXᵉ siècle
North Africa, the Sahara, and the central African hinterland
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The nineteenth-century trans-Saharan trade transported enslaved Africans from inland regions toward North African and Middle Eastern markets. Its routes connected areas from the Bambara country to Borno, Sokoto, and southern Mozambique with Morocco, Tripoli, Egypt, the Red Sea, and the Middle East. Western powers struggled to suppress it because it operated within Africa, beyond the reach of Atlantic naval patrols and largely through African-controlled networks.
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Le récit
The trans-Saharan slave trade continued while Atlantic abolition campaigns expanded along the western coast. British attention to the north African trade remained limited, despite the efforts of the abolitionist Consul Warrington. Although the provinces were formally linked to the Turks of Constantinople, local authorities often acted independently, and the political fragmentation of the region made enforcement dependent on the cooperation of rulers and powerful hinterland intermediaries.
The French conquest of the Regency of Algiers in 1830 became colonization from 1842, while Tunisia abolished the trade between 1840 and 1842 under French and British pressure. Tripoli faced greater obstacles because chieftains in the hinterland controlled important connections with slaves from Borno and Sokoto. Shaykh ‘Abd al-Djalil, who dominated the Fezzan from Murzuk, agreed to abolition in 1842 but was murdered, illustrating the vulnerability of abolition agreements to local political violence.
Turkey banned the trade in 1857, but the measure did not interrupt it throughout the region, including Egypt. Morocco remained a separate case: European diplomatic initiatives failed until 1887, while the country continued to receive substantial numbers of black Africans. The excerpt gives an estimate of 3,500 to 4,000 arrivals annually in the middle of the nineteenth century and 500 as late as the 1880s.
The routes extended across a vast belt, from the Bambara country in the west to southern Mozambique. Between the beginning of the century and the 1880s, the trans-Saharan trade and the Arab trade together exported an estimated 1,200,000 and 800,000 black Africans respectively. Unlike the Atlantic trade, the trans-Saharan system remained largely outside Western naval control because it did not extend beyond the boundaries of Africa.
XVIIIᵉ siècle – XIXᵉ siècle
North Africa, the Sahara, and the central African hinterland
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The nineteenth-century trans-Saharan trade transported enslaved Africans from inland regions toward North African and Middle Eastern markets. Its routes connected areas from the Bambara country to Borno, Sokoto, and southern Mozambique with Morocco, Tripoli, Egypt, the Red Sea, and the Middle East. Western powers struggled to suppress it because it operated within Africa, beyond the reach of Atlantic naval patrols and largely through African-controlled networks.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
The trans-Saharan slave trade continued while Atlantic abolition campaigns expanded along the western coast. British attention to the north African trade remained limited, despite the efforts of the abolitionist Consul Warrington. Although the provinces were formally linked to the Turks of Constantinople, local authorities often acted independently, and the political fragmentation of the region made enforcement dependent on the cooperation of rulers and powerful hinterland intermediaries.
The French conquest of the Regency of Algiers in 1830 became colonization from 1842, while Tunisia abolished the trade between 1840 and 1842 under French and British pressure. Tripoli faced greater obstacles because chieftains in the hinterland controlled important connections with slaves from Borno and Sokoto. Shaykh ‘Abd al-Djalil, who dominated the Fezzan from Murzuk, agreed to abolition in 1842 but was murdered, illustrating the vulnerability of abolition agreements to local political violence.
Turkey banned the trade in 1857, but the measure did not interrupt it throughout the region, including Egypt. Morocco remained a separate case: European diplomatic initiatives failed until 1887, while the country continued to receive substantial numbers of black Africans. The excerpt gives an estimate of 3,500 to 4,000 arrivals annually in the middle of the nineteenth century and 500 as late as the 1880s.
The routes extended across a vast belt, from the Bambara country in the west to southern Mozambique. Between the beginning of the century and the 1880s, the trans-Saharan trade and the Arab trade together exported an estimated 1,200,000 and 800,000 black Africans respectively. Unlike the Atlantic trade, the trans-Saharan system remained largely outside Western naval control because it did not extend beyond the boundaries of Africa.
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