Acteurs et itinéraires du commerce des esclaves au temps des empires soudanais Soninké et Manding

Contenu

Titre

Acteurs et itinéraires du commerce des esclaves au temps des empires soudanais Soninké et Manding

Créateur

Coulibaly, Pédiomatéhi Ali

Sujet

Commerce transsaharien

Résumé

This study analyzes the actors, networks, and commercial routes that structured the trans-Saharan slave trade during the Soninke and Manding empires (8th–13th centuries) through a critical examination of Arabic-Islamic sources, including alYaʿqūbī, al-Idrīsī, Ibn al-Fakīh, and Ibn Ḥawqal, supplemented by modern historiography. While the trade predated Islam, it intensified significantly following Arab-Berber expansion into the Sahel, operating through collaboration between Sudanese rulers who organized slave raids and market provisioning, and Maghrebi and Eastern merchants (particularly Ibadite Berbers) who established purchasing posts, financed caravans, and secured desert passage. Three principal itineraries channeled enslaved populations northward: the western Tahert–Sijilmassa–Awdaghost–Ghana axis; the Tripoli–Zawila–Kanem corridor linking Fezzan to Lake Chad; and an Egypt–Ghana route traversing Gao, Kawar, and the Kharga/Dakhla oases. Religious-legal discourse, notably the equation of unbelief (kufr) with enslavability, as articulated in Aḥmad Bābā's legal opinions, and elite demand for luxury commodities sustained capture and exchange, with urban centers like Koumbi Saleh, Awdaghost, Gao, and Zawila serving as nodal points. By correlating political chronologies with documented caravan geography, the research illuminates how state authority, commercial mediation, and desert infrastructure converged to transform localized enslavement into systematic trans-Saharan labor traffic supplying North Africa and the Middle East.

Est une partie de

Rivages

Date

2025

volume

11

numéro

2

pages

47-63

doi

10.34874/IMIST.PRSM/rivages-v11.i2.58489

Langue

fre