Togo - West Africa - page 850

pended on slave labour and the demand for African slaves was insatiable, not least because conditions on the
plantations were so bad that life expectancy after arriving in the Americas was often no more than a few years.
In most cases, European traders encouraged Africans on the coast to attack neighbouring tribes and take cap-
tives. These were brought to coastal slaving stations and exchanged for European goods such as cloth and guns. A
triangular trans-Atlantic trade route developed - the slaves were loaded onto ships and transported to the Amer-
icas, the raw materials they produced were transported to Europe, and the finished goods were transported from
Europe to Africa once again, to be exchanged for slaves and to keep the whole system moving. Exact figures are
impossible to come by, but it is estimated that from the end of the 15th century until around 1870, when the slave
trade was abolished, as many as 20 million Africans were captured. Up to half of these died, mostly while being
transported in horribly overcrowded and unhealthy conditions.
But more than a century after the slave trade was abolished, slavery has yet to be consigned to history in West
Africa, where people continue to be born into, and live their whole lives in, slavery. In Niger, the local anti-
slavery NGO Timidria estimated in 2003 that 7% of Niger's population was living in conditions of forced labour,
while Anti-Slavery International ( www.antislavery.org ) estimates that a significant number of Malians, and al-
most one-fifth of Mauritania's more than three million people, live in slavery; Mauritania finally criminalised
slavery in August 2007.
In October 2008, Hadijatou Mani, an escaped slave, took Niger's government before the Court of Justice of the
West African regional body Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States). The court upheld her argu-
ment that Niger's government had failed to protect her by not implementing Niger's own anti-slavery legislation
and awarded her substantial compensation. The decision set a legal precedent which applies in all West African
countries.
Later States & Empires
As the Empire of Mali declined, the Wolof people established the Empire of Jolof (also
spelt Yollof) in 1360 near the site of present-day Dakar in Senegal. Meanwhile, on the
southeastern fringe of the Songhaï realm, the Hausa created several powerful city-states,
such as Katsina, Kano and Zinder (still important trading towns today), but they never
amalgamated into a single empire.
Further east again, on the shores of Lake Chad, the Kanem-Borno Empire was founded
in the early 14th century. At its height it covered a vast area including parts of present-day
Niger, Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon, before being loosely incorporated into the Songhaï
sphere of influence; it nonetheless remained a powerful force until the 19th century.
To the south, between the 13th and 16th centuries, several smaller but locally powerful
states arose in gold-producing areas: the kingdoms of Benin (in present-day Nigeria),
Dahomey (Benin), Mossi (Burkina Faso) and Akan-Ashanti (Ghana).
Muqqadimah is the landmark account of early Moroccan and Berber history by Ibn Khuldun, renowned
Arab historian at Kairaouine University in Fez. The man knew his history - six centuries later, scholars
still reference his text.