Definition
Trans-Saharan slave trade was conducted within the ambits of the trans-Saharan trade, otherwise referred to as the Arab trade. Trans-Saharan trade, conducted across the Sahara Desert, was a web of commercial interactions between the Arab world (North Africa and the Persian Gulf) and sub-Saharan Africa. The main objects of this trade were gold and salt; gold was in abundance in the western part of Africa, but scarce in North Africa. On the other hand, while salt remains indispensable to human societies, it was not producible in sub-Saharan Africa, but was abundant in North Africa. This created a rationale for trading between these two regions, separated by a vast and hostile terrain. Subsequently, there developed an intricate web of trade routes, powered by caravans of camels, between different sub-Saharan societies and the Arab world. It was during the course of trading that human beings gradually became items of exchange as the need for manpower grew on the north side of...
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References
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Further Reading
Fage J (1969) Slavery and the slave trade in the context of West African History. J Afr Hist 10(3):393–404
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Savage E (ed) (1992) The human commodity: perspectives on the trans-Saharan slave trade. Frank Cass, London
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Kehinde, M. (2013). Trans-Saharan Slave Trade. In: Bean, F., Brown, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Migration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6179-7_30-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6179-7_30-1
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