Slavery in Niger

When the French took control of the area, they largely ignored the problem and only actively banned the trade in slaves but not the practices of slavery. Following independence, many of the major slave holders became prominent political leaders in both the multiparty democracy period and the military dictatorship (1974 until 1991), and so the problem of slavery was largely ignored. In 2003, with pressure from the anti-slavery organization Timidria, Niger passed the first law in Western Africa that criminalized slavery as a specific crime. Despite this, slavery persists throughout the different ethnic groups in the country, women are particularly vulnerable, and a 2002 census confirmed the existence of 43,000 slaves and estimated that the total slave population could be over 870,000 people. The landmark Mani v. Niger case was one of the first instances where a person won a judgement against the government of Niger in an international court for sanctioning her slave status in official decisions.

Historical practices

Slavery existed throughout what is today Niger and the region played a pivotal role in the trans-Saharan slave trade for many centuries. In some ethnic groups, slavery became a significant phenomenon and made up a large part of the population and the economic production and trade. In other areas, slavery remained small and were only held by the elite in the communities. However, since political leaders often were slave-holders, they presented a significant hurdle for French authorities when they colonized the area and in post-independence Niger.

Bornu

Much of the east of present-day Niger was involved in a significant part of the trans-Saharan slave trade with a route starting in Kano and traveling through the rugged Aïr Mountains. The Bornu Empire centered along this route became a prominent participant in the Trans-Saharan slave trade prior to the Fulani jihad (1804–1808) to the east and the movement of Tuareg into the Aïr region in the 1800s. The trade through Bornu was small-scale for many centuries but remained steady before reaching its peak in the 1500s.

Starting in the 1600s, the Jukun confederation, a collection of pagan peoples, began challenging the Bornu empire. The result was a series of retaliatory slave raids between the two powers with each feeding the slave trade to the coast (the West African slave market for the Jukun and the North African markets for Bornu).

With the decline of the Bornu empire in the 17th and 18th centuries, slaves became a more significant part of the domestic economy with the creation of both slave villages and slave plantations throughout the empire. This occurred both because of the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate in the 1800s which increased the agricultural trade and introduced large-scale slave plantations to the region and as a result of exorbitant taxes leveled by the Bornu authorities which caused free people in the empire to purchase slaves to increase output and pay taxes.

In terms of domestic use, agricultural work figured the most prominently. Women were the highest valued domestically, to a large part because of cultural practices which dictated that only first generation slaves could earn their freedom, and that the children of slaves never could become free. As a result, women of child bearing age, whose children would all be slaves for life, were particularly valuable.

Other areas of Niger

Beginning in the 18th century but particularly in the 19th century, the Sultanate of Damagaram, located in the present-day city of Zinder, became a political rival to the Bornu empire. Damagaram was successful because it built a large, mobile army able to protect trade routes and because they made alliances with the Tuareg leaders who had now become the primary power in the Aïr Mountains. With these alliances, Zinder became a major power along the trans-Saharan trade route from Kano to Tripoli and Cairo. Zinder combined populations from the Kanuri (the major ethnic group of the Bornu empire), the Hausa, and the Tuareg and as a result developed slave practices which borrowed from all three to create a large slave population and varied institutions of slavery. There were thus large populations of domestic and agricultural slaves, borrowed from Kanuri customs, the development of plantation slavery, from Hausa practice, and the development of separate slave communities, from Tuareg practice. Slaves were not the only export commodity from the Sultanate, but were crucial parts of the overall economic structure. As the Sultanate increased in power, the Sultan began to replace nobles in his court with slave administrators, which increased his ability to rule without interference by others.

Elsewhere in Niger, slavery was practiced in a variety of different ways. In the Zarma speaking regions in the west of Niger, slavery provided the crucial workforce in agriculture. It has been estimated that up to 75% of the population in these regions were slaves in 1904–1905. Unlike Damagaram and Bornu regions, any slave could be freed by their master in Zarma practices.

In Northern Niger, in the present regions of Tahoua and Agadez, there are no signs of large-scale indigenous practices of slavery before the Tuareg entered the area in the 1800s. Since the light-skinned Tuaregs were the only slave holders and the dark-skinned indigenous population was largely held in servitude, the division of society between free and slaves adopted a racial division in these regions. The most important Tuareg community were the Kel Owey who settled in the Aïr Mountain region. Because of the rugged terrain with severe drought effects, and because of their participation in the trans-Saharan trade, the Tuareg used a form of slavery where communities of slaves would tend animals and do limited agriculture and would be allowed to move freely around an area. Although these communities had some significant liberties, their harvest, products, and children were closely controlled by a Tuareg noble.

In the Hausa societies in central Niger, slavery was primarily practiced in royal courts and thus of a limited nature. Similarly, in what is today the Maradi Region in central Niger, the Maradi leaders were engaged in a long-running series of tensions with the Sokoto Caliphate involving slave raiding by both sides. However, the Maradi mostly took slaves for ransom and domestic slavery was usually only used by the aristocracy and people of power.

French rule and independence

When the French took over the region in the early 1900s they had a policy banning the existence of slavery. The French officially banned slavery in all French West Africa in 1905, but did not enforce the ban since they did not view enforcement to be politically possible, and the French policy was therefore to officially prohibit slavery and informally tolerate its continuation.

However local French administrators usually resisted pressure to abolish slavery from the colonial and metropolitan governments. French administrators would take credit for abolishing slavery by simply ignoring its continued existence or claiming that the bonds were voluntary. One local administrator justified such a policy by saying, "I do not think it is presently possible to eliminate slavery. Our civilization has not penetrated deeply enough for the natives, both masters and slaves, to understand and accept any measures towards the outright elimination of slavery." The local colonial administrators did however carry out policies to put a stop to slave trafficking and slave markets. During World War I, in order to meet quotas of troops to the French army, traditional chiefs supplied slaves to the colonial administration. In urban areas and settled communities with a strong French administrative presence, slavery and forced servitude were gradually ended, but in the rest of the country the practices remained active.

Traditional chiefs, who had been major slave owners particularly in Tuareg communities, became prominent leaders of the country after independence. They held positions in government and were the leaders of many of the major parties during the brief multi-party period of the country. These prominent positions of slave-holders continued during the military dictatorship where the regional chiefs were relied upon for support of that government. As a result, slavery was largely an ignored issue by the government for the early decades of independence.