Although historians continue to trace the existence of the Atlantic slave trade back to African domestic slavery that was part of social structure, my investigation into African social stratification in the kingdoms of Senegambia uncovers significant differences between slavery as practiced within the Atlantic trade and so-termed African domestic slavery. The chapter’s objective is to affirm the absence of a correlation between the two forms of slavery. First, it questions the extent to which inegalitarian social structures, of which domestic slavery was a part, resulted in an openness to the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trades. It argues that inegalitarian societies were in fact closed to their development into commercial slavery. Social stratification in West Africa, with its connected domestic slavery, was not designed to provide a reserve of captives, in other words. Rather, as exemplified by the case of Gajaaga, the primary function of inegalitarian social structures was to integrate people into society as dependents and kin. The second line of inquiry pursues how, with the presence of the Atlantic slave trade, this primary function dissolved in certain cases. Kingdoms that adhered to the Atlantic slave trade ceased their integration of these individuals, leaving them as easy prey for slave-hunting.

The first chapter of this book begins with understanding of African histories as the headspring of cultural and political expressions in Saint Domingue, with the hopes of uncovering Africans’ and African descendants’ epistemological and ontological core. The chapter gives an overview of the African origins of slave trade captives through the lens of several themes: religion, warfare, rebellion, slavery, and anti-slavery sentiment. The chapter focuses on regions and ethnic groups most affected by French trading to Saint Domingue: Aradas and Nagô/Yorubas from the Bight of Benin, and KiKongo-speaking peoples of West Central Africa. A survey of those political cultures, African slavery and the French Atlantic slave trade, and coastal and slave ship resistances demonstrates that Africans’ consciousness was imbued with complex localized ideas about the nature of slavery – and legacies of resistance to it – before disembarking at Saint Domingue.

The first chapter of this book begins with understanding of African histories as the headspring of cultural and political expressions in Saint Domingue, with the hopes of uncovering Africans’ and African descendants’ epistemological and ontological core. The chapter gives an overview of the African origins of slave trade captives through the lens of several themes: religion, warfare, rebellion, slavery, and anti-slavery sentiment. The chapter focuses on regions and ethnic groups most affected by French trading to Saint Domingue: Aradas and Nagô/Yorubas from the Bight of Benin, and KiKongo-speaking peoples of West Central Africa. A survey of those political cultures, African slavery and the French Atlantic slave trade, and coastal and slave ship resistances demonstrates that Africans’ consciousness was imbued with complex localized ideas about the nature of slavery – and legacies of resistance to it – before disembarking at Saint Domingue.

Focusing on the years between 1763 and 1789, Chapter 4 explores French attempts to embark on cash crop cultivation in Senegambia alongside the trans-Atlantic slave trade. When the French crown took control of the French holdings in Senegambia at the end of the Seven Years War, it abolished the monopoly of the Compagnie des Indes and installed a colonial official on the island of Gorée. From here, local officials started exploring opportunities for sugar, cotton, coffee, indigo, and tobacco cultivation in the region, often against the wishes of the central government. As the future of French colonial empire looked increasingly uncertain, and the cost of slave labour appeared unnecessarily costly, private merchants and semi-private commercial companies joined such activities, eager to exploit African resources for private gain. The chapter explores the language with which colonial entrepreneurs articulated these projects. It also studies endeavours to create agricultural plantations on land leased from local rulers on the mainland opposite the island of Gorée and along the Senegal River. The chapter uncovers how French officials made some headway with cash crop cultivation before the French Revolution disrupted such experiments.