r who was wrecked on the West Coast of Africa
in 1810, said of the raiding parties sent out from Timbuktu, "These
armed parties were all on foot except the officers. They were usually
absent from one week to a month, and at times brought in considerable
numbers," mostly from the Bambaras. "The slaves thus brought in were
chiefly women and children, who, after being detained a day or two at
the king's house, were sent away to other parts for sale."[4]

The Fellatahs, who, since the beginning of the nineteenth century,
have been the dominators of the Nigritians in West Africa, used to
carry on a merciless campaign against their subjects, destroying their
homes and fields, and seizing women and children by the thousands to
barter away to the West, or to send across the desert. Describing the
effects of a Fellatah raid, Barth says: "The whole village, which only
a few moments before had been the abode of comfort and happiness, was
destroyed by fire and made desolate. Slaughtered men, with their limbs
severed from their bodies, were lying about in all directions and made
passers-by shudder with horror."[5]

The slave traffic in the Sudan gave rise at a very early date to
regular slave markets. The city of Jenne on the Niger was, in the
middle ages, the greatest emporium in West Africa, far outshining
Timbuktu. From the fifteenth century to the present time, the most
celebrated slave markets have been Kuka, on Lake Chad, Timbuktu,
capital of the Songhay empire, Kano, capital of the Haussa empire, and
Katsena, capital of a district of the same name. Rohlfs found at the
Kuka slave market, white haired old men and women, children suckling
strange breasts, young girls and strong boys who had come from Bornu,
Baghirmi, Haussa, Logun, Musgu, Waday and from lands still more
distant.[6]

The slaves were carried across the desert by two kinds of caravans.
First, those composed of nomad tribes, which migrated periodically
from north to south. During the winter the tribes would pasture their
camels along the edges of the desert, but in the spring they would
visit the cities in the oases to gather up a supply of dates and other
desert products to sell in the north. They would then in the same
season proceed north to the cultivated regions of the Atlas mountains
and arrive there in the midst of the harvest, exchanging their
southern commodities for grain, raw-wool, and a variety of European
goods. At the end of the summer they would re