Slavery formed the demographic and economic backbone of precolonial West African states

Evidence

Over the course of centuries, Berbers from North Africa and Arabs came to inhabit what is now Mauritania. They took black African slaves, creating an entrenched racial hierarchy. Over time, the bloodlines of the masters and the slaves mixed and they came to share a language—Arabic or an Arabic dialect—and cultural practices: As the masters imposed their traditions, the slaves lost their own. As a result, and disturbingly, slave owners often referred to their slaves as family. In modern Mauritania, people speak of the mingled Arab-Berbers as White Moors and the slaves as Haratin. — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 98 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Slavery was a critical foundation for early capitalism — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 584; Africa’s low population-to-land ratio helped drive its internal slave systems; Africa supplied slave labor because its region lay outside Europe’s world-economy (+11 more)

Related

• Mauritania’s slavery produced a hereditary caste system of White Moors and Haratin (similarity 0.86)
• Africa supplied slave labor because its region lay outside Europe’s world-economy (similarity 0.84)
• Slavery was central to capitalism, not a mere primitive precondition (similarity 0.82)
• Slavery was a critical foundation for early capitalism (similarity 0.82)
• Africa’s low population-to-land ratio helped drive its internal slave systems (similarity 0.82)
• Slaves formed majorities of West African town and state populations. (similarity 0.81)
• European colonization employed slave labor as its foundational institution, not incidentally (similarity 0.80)
• The slave trade advanced European capitalism while underdeveloping Africa’s economies. (similarity 0.80)
• Capitalists extracted Black labor while letting African social formations reproduce the supply (similarity 0.79)
• Plantation slavery combined capitalist and non-capitalist modes in dominance (similarity 0.79)
• The slave trade destabilized African kingdoms as early as 1526 (similarity 0.79)
• Traditional African slavery was often time-limited and permitted full social integration (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Africa supplied slave labor because its region lay outside Europe’s world-economy #expands (0.70)
• Mauritania’s slavery produced a hereditary caste system of White Moors and Haratin #exemplifies (0.65) — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 98
• Africa’s low population-to-land ratio helped drive its internal slave systems #expands (0.60)
• Slavery was a critical foundation for early capitalism #expands (0.50) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 584
• Slavery was central to capitalism, not a mere primitive precondition #expands (0.50)