West Africa experienced extensive warfare and enslavement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Populations were scattered along the main slave trade routes in West Africa. This presentation analyses how formerly enslaved populations in Western Mali have escaped slavery in successive waves, rebuilt autonomous communities, and resisted legacies of slavery along the twentieth century. This entailed renegotiations of kinship, marriage and religious practices while stigmatization and vulnerability rooted in the history of slavery continued to be rife.
Dr Marie Rodet is Reader in the History of Africa at SOAS, University of London. Her main research interest is in the history of slavery in Francophone West Africa.
