African Slave Trades

From Nathan Nunn's newly published article, "The Long-term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades," in a new Quarterly Journal of Economics 2008.

"The slave trades also contributed to political instability by causing the corruption of previously established legal structures. In many cases, it became common to obtain slaves by falsely accusing others of witchcraft or other crimes (Lovejoy 2000; Northrup 1978; Koelle 1854). Klein (2001) writes that 'communities began enslaving their own. Judicial penalties that formerly had taken the form of beatings, payment of compensation or exile, for example, were now converted to enslavement.' Often, leaders themselves supported or even instigated this abuse of the judicial system (Mahadi 1992; Klein 2001; Hawthorne 1999,2003). To protect themselves and their community from being raided, leaders often chose to pay slaves as tribute, which were often obtained through the judicial system. Hawthorne (1999,2003) provides detailed studies of this process among the Cassanga of modern day Guinea Bissau. The chief of the Cassanga used the `red water ordeal' to procure slaves and their possessions. Those accused of a crime were forced to drink a poisonous red liquid. If they vomited, then they were judged to be guilty. If they did not vomit, they were deemed not guilty. However, for those that did not vomit, this usually brought death by poisoning. Their possesions were then seized and their family members were sold into slavery."