the slave class because they were
considered inferior to the sons born of the women of the group.[2] But
it is quite evident that slavery originated primarily from economic
conditions. For further sociological explanations of slavery in the
several zones the reader is referred to the author's first and second
volumes on the Negro races.

II. THE SLAVE TRADE OF WEST AFRICA AND THE DESERT OF SAHARA

The African slave trade goes back as far as our knowledge of the Negro
race. The first Negroes of which we have any record were probably
slaves brought in caravans to Egypt. They were in demand as slaves in
all the oases of the deserts, and along the coasts of the
Mediterranean. "Among the ruling nations on the north coast," says
Heeren, "the Egyptians, Cyrenians and Carthaginians, slavery was not
only established but they imported whole armies of slaves, partly for
home use, and partly, at least by the latter, to be shipped off to
foreign markets. These wretched beings were chiefly drawn from the
interior, where kidnapping was just as much carried on then as it is
at present. Black male and female slaves were even an article of
luxury, not only among the above mentioned nations, but even in Greece
and Italy; and as the allurement to this traffic was on this account
so great, the unfortunate Negro race had, even thus early, the
wretched fate to be dragged into distant lands under the galling yoke
of bondage."[3] Since the introduction of Mohammedanism, slaves have
been carried eastward into all of the Moslem States as far as Asia
Minor and Turkey, where they are still much valued as domestic
servants or as eunuchs to guard the seraglios of Mohammedan princes.
In the middle ages many African slaves were carried into Spain through
the instrumentality of the Saracens, and from there the first slaves
were imported into America. The supply of slaves for the Northern and
Eastern States was obtained chiefly from the region of the Sudan. At
an early period many caravan routes led northward from this region.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the slaves were
obtained by a variety of methods, of which the most common was that of
raiding the agricultural Nigritians who lived in towns and cities
scattered and unorganized in the agricultural zone, and who were easy
victims of the mounted bands of desert Berbers, Tuaregs and Arabs who
descended into the region in quest of booty and captives. Robert
Adams, an American sailo