Sare Dembayel, Upper Casamance region, southern Senegal in 2014. Photo by author.
Anti-slavery activists should consider visiting the Upper Casamance region of southern Senegal. There they will find significant concentrations of people who identify as slave descendants, and even some elderly people who recollect the enslavement of their ancestors in the late 1800s.
This not-so-distant history looms large in the imagination of the inhabitants of Upper Casamance, as it was during this period that slave raiders on horses ravaged their villages and seized women and children. These raiders incorporated captives into their communities or sold them into slave trading routes linking the Upper Casamance to contemporary Mauritania, Mali, the Gambia, Guinea Conakry and Guinea Bissau. Those who survived these raids looked for new localities where their families and herds could prosper in peace, and sought the protection of powerful military leaders. They also tried to increase the size of their communities by acquiring slaves themselves and welcoming new settlers.
