Summary

Historically, children formed a significant proportion of enslaved people in the African continent. In most cases, newborn infants inherited the status of slavery from their mothers or, less commonly, their fathers. Unlike the racialized systems of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas, the unfree status of African children born to enslaved parents was often slightly different and marginally closer to the status of free children of the household. Children were also frequently targeted for enslavement, through kidnapping, trafficking, or pawning, due to their potential for training in specific crafts and professions, their dependent status and their physically smaller size.

On the African continent, the laws and rules governing slave status were worked out in detail for each community. The same was true of childhood. Many societies practiced challenging or elaborate rituals of adulthood, which allowed individuals to enter fully into the social, political, and economic life of a community. Childhood and slavery shared some features of exclusion from full adult life and rights. In addition to these Indigenous legal and social frameworks, colonial rule introduced and imposed Eurocentric notions of childhood, slavery, and freedom on African colonies.

This diversity makes the African continent an important context for exploring the experiences of enslaved children as well as reflecting on these changing categories and definitions. Enslaved African children also played a sizable role in the African Diasporas in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Enslaved Africans carried their own notions of childhood, family, and coming-of-age with them on these forced migrations, and children made up a large proportion of the captives on ships, particularly during the 19th century’s illegal transatlantic trade and throughout the course of the Indian Ocean trade. African children would also play central roles in the campaigns to abolish and end the slave trade and slavery.