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AFRAB’s second workshop took place in the framework of the important Slafco2 Conference “Slavery in Africa: Knowledge & Openings” hosted by the Université de Yaoundé 1, in Cameroon on 19-21 Apr 2022.
Note: This stream has been organised in the framework of the AFRAB Project, which received financial support by the European Research Council (Advanced Grant no. 885418).
STREAM ABSTRACT:
African Legal Abolitions: Rethinking Actors, Chronologies, and Frameworks
This stream focuses on the ideas and actions of African rulers, politicians, intellectuals, legal and religious specialists, free commoners and enslaved persons in relation to the legal abolition of slavery in their countries and regions. When, how, and why did African actors begin to mobilise in order to delegalize or criminalize slavery within their legal and normative frameworks? What concepts did they use? What rationales did they develop in different African languages and legal traditions? How did they react to European antislavery ideas? The present stream, organized by the research project “African Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa” (AFRAB), explores the legal abolition of slavery in Africa by analyzing specific African legal strategies, contextualized in local political systems, normative cultures, and interactions with international actors.
PANELS
PANEL 1: AFRICAN ABOLITIONISMS AND OTHER AFRICAN APPROACHES FOR ENDING SLAVERY
Chair: Benedetta Rossi (UCL)
Research on African abolitionism is a narrow field focused primarily on European anti-slavery activities in Africa. It presupposes that when Europe abolished slavery in Africa, Africans became abolitionists. This conclusion is unwarranted. Many questions still have to be examined in detail: when and where did African abolitionist movements develop? Who are the main ideologues of African abolitionism? How did abolitionism spread, among which groups? What forms of political struggle did African anti-slavery give rise to? This panel, developed in the framework of the African Abolitionism (AFRAB) Project, contributes to answering these questions by analyzing three contexts and comparing different African historical approaches to ending slavery.
On George Ferguson and Local Abolitionism in 19th century Northern Ghana
Emmanuel Saboro and Michael Odijie
Using both archival and oral sources, this paper attempts to present George Ekem Ferguson – a Ghanaian colonial official and surveyor in the nineteenth century – as an anti-slavery campaigner and abolitionist. Conventional narratives and discourses on abolitionism have been centred largely on the role of Europeans in abolishing slavery and the slave trade. Even in instances where Africans were at the forefront of anti-slavery activism, their roles have either been ignored or underestimated. Recent scholarship is however beginning to shed light on the role of such individuals. George Ekem Ferguson helped the British through his surveying work to open some parts of the Northern territories to British influence. He is reported in popular press, archival documents and oral sources to have fought against the slave trade by helping to map out the routes used by the slave traders, an action that resulted in his death in Wa in 1897 at the hands of slave raiders. Yet, his role as an anti-slavery campaigner has been ignored. The Northern territories region of the then Gold Coast was a key supplier of slaves to the transatlantic slave trade. Salaga, for example, was one of the biggest Slave Markets in the Gold Coast where northern captives were sold. In the heyday of domestic slavery, the Northern territories continued to serve as key suppliers of slaves to centralised states like Ashanti. This paper examines Ferguson’s views and actions in his fight to end slave raiding and trading in northern Ghana.
Bios: Emmanuel Saboro (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for African and International Studies, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He obtained his PhD at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), University of Hull, England. He is a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), African Humanities Program. His most recent publication Slavery, Oral Tradition and Identity Constructionhas appeared in T. Falola & T. Akinyemi (Eds), Palgrave Handbook of Oral Traditions and Folklore(Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Michael Odijie (PhD) is a Research Fellow in the UCL-based AFRAB project ‘African Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa’. His university training was at Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria (BA [Hons] History and International Studies) and University of Sheffield, UK (MA and PhD). His latest publications include: "Cocoa and Child Slavery in West Africa." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (2020) and (with Elias Courson), "Egbesu: An African Just War Philosophy and Practice." Journal of African Cultural Studies (2020): 1-16.
The Bombay Africans and Local Abolitionism in Kenya
Samuel A Nyanchoga
The purpose of this paper is to establish who the Bombay Africans were and how they settled in Rabai and Freretown; what their role in these settlements was in general and specifically in relation to slavery and its legacies. Further to that, the paper endeavors to establish the kind of relationship that developed between them, European missionaries, and (ex-)slaves. The paper also considers if abolitionism did feature among them and their descendants in Freretown and Rabai by examining the position and abolitionist agenda they may have advanced. The position of some of the key Bombay African families in the abolitionist agenda will be discussed. Finally the paper will establish if they undertook a local agenda to fight slavery or they perceived it as a white missionary idea.
Bio: Samuel A Nyanchoga is a professor of history and the former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He serves as an external reviewer for the Commission for University Education; National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. He is also an external examiner to several local universities. He sits in the Cultural and Scientific Committee of the Kenya National Commission for the UNESCO; editorial board member of Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences; Africa Humanities and Social Sciences Journal and the Eastern African Journal of Historical and Social Sciences Research. He has membership to several professional and academic Organizations. He is an active researcher within the SLAFNET and AFRAB ERC-funded projects.
Legacy of Manumission on Political Reforms in Ethiopia
Yonas Ashine
Anchoring on the genealogy of manumission in Ethiopian slavery, this paper explores how the praxis of manumission left its own legacy on the political development of modern Ethiopia. The paper reads comparatively two debates: the debate about manumission, if not abolition, in early 20th century Ethiopia and with debate on political reforms (the making of the constitution and) until 1974. In this diachronic and ethnographic navigation, archival documents, memoirs, newspapers will be used. The aim is to historicize the two debates and explore how manumission impacted the political reforms and development in Ethiopia. Manumission is conceptualized here as political reform where the freedom of slaves is born without problematizing the positions and power relations both of the géta and barəya in the géta-barəya (master-slave) power continuum. Mainly the power position of the géta remained intact even after manumission. Therefore, the political reforms hitherto implemented in Ethiopia used the template of manumission in which the privileges and powers of the political elite remained unchanged. Moreover, the justification for controlled, gradual, top-down, and paternalist political reforms in Ethiopia appear similar to the justification exhibited in the praxis of manumission in the country.
Bio: Yonas Ashine is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Addis Ababa University. He earned his PhD in interdisciplinary Social Studies from Makerere Institute of Social Studies, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. His research interest includes political theory, and historical and comparative politics of state-society relations in Africa and from Africa.
PANEL 2: AFRICAN LEGAL ABOLITIONS OF THE 19th CENTURY
Chair: Ruth Abeduwah Quansah
This panel contains three presentations focusing on decrees for the abolition of slavery that were passed, respectively, in Tunisia, Zanzibar, and Ethiopia. These nineteenth century abolitions were developed by Muslim and Christian African rulers who were in contact with the leading abolitionists of the times and decided to align themselves with a bloc of international powers that supported anti-slavery ideologies. Contributions to this panel explore the specific visions, concepts, motivations, and strategies of the Tunisian, Zanzibari, and Ethiopian actors who supported abolition in their countries.
Ahmad Bey’s 1846 Abolition Decree: Its Legislative Framework and Socio-Cultural Context
Ismael M. Montana
On April 26, 1846, Ahmad Bey signed a historic emancipation decree making the Regency of Tunis the first in the modern Islamic world to formally abolish the longstanding institution of slavery. While the decree marked the first of such an unprecedented measure, attracting a barrage of compliments from anti-slavery societies around the globe, it conflicted with the local notions of enslaving practices and thus prompted an earnest process of legitimation for the formal abolition of slavery before the Majlis al-Shari (Sharia Council for Judicial Ordinance), without which abolition would have remained culturally and politically contentious. The paper will assess the socio-cultural context and the plural Islamic legal framework that informed both Ahmad Bey’s argument favouring abolition and the divergent responses and attitudes of the religious establishment towards the abolition decree.
Bio: Ismael M. Montana is an Associate Professor of History at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. He is the author of The Abolition of Slavery in Ottoman Tunisia. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013) and co-editor of Slavery, Islam and Diaspora (Trenton New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2009). His research interests include the social and economic history of slavery, culture, and citizenship in Northwest Africa and the western Mediterranean basin from the 18th century to the present. Montana is the Managing Editor of the Journal of Global Slavery (JGS).
Sultans of Zanzibar and the abolition of slavery in East Africa
Michelle Liebst
In 1890 Sultan Ali of Zanzibar declared in writing that ‘we wish by every means to stop the slave trade’. Statements like these, in addition to the actual passing of anti-slavery legislation, call into question the generally accepted scholarly understanding that the sultans of Zanzibar only agreed to pass and enforce anti-slavery legislation because they were under duress from European, mainly British, powers, who negotiated favourable political and economic benefits in return for (gradual) abolition. A close analysis of the sources tells a more complicated story of both collaboration and conflict between the Zanzibari sultans, their subjects, and the British agents. Moreover, each sultan had distinctive political and religious beliefs, as well as individual personal experiences and outlooks. To date, not enough evidence has been found to conclude that the sultans and their advisors were devoid of any ideological interest in ending slavery. Equally, we must not remake the same mistakes of earlier accounts of British agents and explorers in the region who were all too hastily hailed as abolitionists. This paper explores the anti-slavery legislation passed under three sultans of Zanzibar: Barghash bin Said (1870-1888) who prohibited the transport of slaves by sea in 1873, Ali bin Said (1890-1893) who passed the Slave Trade Prohibition Decree of 1890, and Hamoud bin Mohammed (1896-1902) who passed the Abolition Decree of 1897. By analysing draft treaties and correspondence before and after the passing of legislation, this paper will determine the roles and perspectives of these sultans in relation to abolishing slavery.
Bio: My work has focused mainly on the themes of religion, labour, humanitarianism, gender and citizenship. Since completing my PhD, I have worked at the University of Birmingham and the University of Edinburgh. My book, Labour and Christianity in the Mission, has been published in 2021 by James Currey. Now at UCL, I am working on the ERC-funded project, African Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa (AFRAB) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and historian of East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania).
Abolitionist Decrees in Ethiopia: Development of Legal Categories from Menelik to Haile Selassie, 1889-1974.
Takele Merid & Alexander Meckelburg
Historically, slavery and the slave trade were important, culturally rooted economic institutions in Ethiopia. The abolition of these institutions was a long and complex process which is evident from multiple anti-slavery and anti-slave trade laws and decrees over time. This paper looks at the development of anti-slavery laws under different rulers. We analyse changing national and international contexts and examine changes and continuities in judicial and legal approaches in consecutive Ethiopian governments, with a focus on the Christian kingdom and its successor empire. While slavery existed in all the various societies integrated in the Abyssinian empire since the second half of the nineteenth century and took different forms under different legal traditions, in this paper we focus specifically on the Christian legal tradition. We take the Christian law code, the Fetha Nagast, as a starting point to discuss the main legal concepts, religious connotations, and practical applications in the anti-slavery legislation of governments. We then consider the developments of consecutive edicts and laws enacted by Christian emperors.
Bios: Dr. Takele Merid is an assistant Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES), Addis Ababa University (AAU). He graduated with BA in History in 2004 and MA in Cultural Studies and PhD in Social Anthropology, 2016 from Addis Ababa University. Between January 2005 and February 2008, he worked as a heritage expert for the Federal Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ethiopia. In March 2008, he joined IES and AAU, where he is still working as a researcher and Professor of Social Anthropology. Dr. Takele was a research fellow of University of Bath Spa, United Kingdom (2018) and is currently research fellow of Hamburg University. He is an active researcher in the ERC funded SLAFNET Network. Dr. Alexander Meckelburg is a historical anthropologist. He is Research Fellow at UCL’s Department of History within the ERC-funded project “African Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa (AFRAB)”. He carries out research on the history of slavery and abolition in Ethiopia. His research focuses on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. His PhD thesis “From “Subject to Citizen”? History, Identity and Minority Citizenship: The Case of the Mao and Komo of western Ethiopia” (Hamburg, 2017) is a historical ethnography of minority citizenship and intergenerational marginalization of Koman-speaking ethnic communities in western Ethiopia.
PANEL 3: EUROPEAN LEGAL ABOLITIONS AND AFRICAN STRATEGIES
Chair: Monsuru Muritala
This panel consists of four presentations that examine the strategies of different African actors confronted with the ideas and practices of legal abolition introduced by Europeans in their countries. Presenters focus, respectively, on the dynamics surrounding the French abolition of 1848 in Saint Louis and Gorée; the political strategies of the deposed Oba Akitoye of Lagos, also in the mid-19th century; the positions of Fante intellectuals in relation to British abolition in the Gold Coast; and the ways in which formerly enslaved persons in western Tanganyika used local legal institutions to try and influence colonial abolitionism in their favour.
The decree of the emancipation of slaves of 1848: a difficult application
Cheikh Sène
"The soil of France frees the slave who touches it ". Such was article 7 of the decree of April 27, 1848 abolishing slavery in the French colonies. This decree was registered in Senegal on June 23, 1848, to take effect from August 23, 1848. In Senegal, Saint-Louis and the island of Gorée were considered French territories. The owners of slaves in Saint-Louis and in the interior of the country (the Moors, gum merchants) demanded that article 7 be suspended as far as they were concerned. The principle of the liberating soil would risk provoking an influx of slaves in search of freedom in Saint-Louis and Gorée. The application of Article 7, as it was formulated, posed for Senegal's trading posts the very question of their existence. The colonial authorities justified the impossibility of applying article 7 of the decree of April 27, 1848 by the need not to offend local sensibilities and by the need to preserve French interests as well as alliances with African leaders. This communication helps us to understand the reasons why the decree of April 27, 1848 was never fully applied in Senegal. It allows us to grasp the forms of dependence of the actors vis-à-vis slavery and to understand how the decree of April 27, 1848 was instrumentalized by the colonial administration with the sole aim of protecting its economic endeavours.
Bio: Cheikh Sène is a young doctor affiliated with the Institut des Mondes Africains Aubervilliers. He specialises in political, economic and social history. Research areas include: Encounters between African and European societies in modern and contemporary times - taxation, tax, trade, diplomacy, colonization; The beginnings of modern Africa; Empire, imperialism and colonialism in Africa; Trafficking, slavery and dependence.
Oba Akitoye of Lagos (1841-1845 & 1851-1853) and the Dialectics of Exile, Legality and Abolitionism in a 19th Century African City-State
Olutayo C. Adesina
The deposition of Oba Akitoye as the political and natural ruler of Lagos, his life in exile, and his eventual restoration became central to the narrative on abolitionism in Lagos and the hinterland. This paper probes the vexing questions of abolitionism and exile in an African city-state. It traces an imaginative response by Oba Akitoye to deposition, exile, alliances, and abolitionism. Nineteenth-century Lagos was an African city-state well known for its profitable participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Akitoye reigned in Lagos first from 1841-1845, after which Kosoko deposed him. He then fled to Abeokuta and later to Badagry. At Badagry, after mounting offensives to reclaim his throne in Lagos, Akitoye turned to the British for help with a promise to conform to the abolition of the slave trade. How was this done from a position of exile and as a deposed king? What locus standi did he have to still speak for the Lagos throne at that point in time? What were the implications of the fight for abolitionism for the future of Lagos? This is a historical review of how abolitionism gained support from unlikely sources in a domain that had continued to surreptitiously carry on with the obnoxious trade in slaves several years after the abolition of the trade by Great Britain. This work is a particularly significant reconstruction of how the events in Lagos from deposition to exile and eventual restoration metamorphosed into an issue of strategic importance for abolitionists.
Bio: Olutayo Charles Adesina is the current Head of the Department of History of the University of Ibadan. He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL). He has been a recipient of multiple distinguished Fellowship Awards and visiting positions, including at Harvard, Oxford, New Delhi, Salzburg, Georgia (US), and Shanghai. His most recent publications include: “A Terrain…Angels Would Fear to Tread”: Biographies and History in Nigeria”, Southern Journal of Contemporary History, 45/1 (2020); and Oyo: History, Tradition and Royalty. Essays in Honour of His Imperial Majesty the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba (Dr.) Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III (Ibadan, 2021; edited with Siyan Oyeweso). He is the Editor of Africa Review and is currently completing a manuscript on the Ibadan School of History.
Local Abolitionism in 19th and early 20th century Gold Coast
Michael Odijie
This paper draws on a variety of primary sources to first illustrate the rise of African abolitionism in the Fanti region in the mid-19th century and then situate this trend in the context of legal (colonial) abolition in the Gold Coast. The legal abolition of slavery in the Gold Coast in 1874 coincided with an evolving local anti-slavery movement among the Fanti, which was anchored on a dialectic process of identity formation fashioned against the “barbaric” Ashanti (as well as the rise of Christian teaching). Due to their different visions of emancipation, tension arose between the flagbearers for the local movement (Fante intelligentsia) and British colonial elites, disrupting the legal abolition process. This paper shows that the 1874 abolition was initially opposed by members of the anti-slavery Fante “movement” (an opposition often misread as indicating that the latter were pro-slavery or against the idea of abolition). The paper also situates these local abolition efforts in the second age of colonial abolition in the Gold Coast, from 1928 onward. It examines, in turn: the rise of local abolitionism among the coastal Fante – tracing ideas, individuals and events; local abolitionism in the “first age” of colonial abolition in the Gold Coast, 1874–1900; and local abolitionism in the “second age” of colonial abolition in the Gold Coast, 1928–1960.
Bio: Michael Odijie is a Research Fellow in the UCL-based AFRAB project ‘African Abolitionism: The Rise and Transformations of Anti-Slavery in Africa’. His university training was at Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria (BA [Hons] History and International Studies) and University of Sheffield, UK (MA and PhD). His latest publications include: "Cocoa and Child Slavery in West Africa." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (2020) and (with Elias Courson), "Egbesu: An African Just War Philosophy and Practice." Journal of African Cultural Studies (2020): 1-16.
In Pursuit of Freedom: Legal Abolition of Slavery, Tensions, and Creation of Mission Communities in Western Tanzania 1905-1930
Salvatory S. Nyanto and Felicitas Becker
This paper centers on primary and secondary sources to examine ways in which individual slaves and missions used public declarations and witnesses to carve out a separate space of legal procedures as a prerequisite for certification of emancipation in German East Africa (Tanzania mainland). The preconditions for emancipation demonstrated slaves’ intellectual creativity in shaping the German and British legal system in western Tanzania. Colonial administrators relied on public declarations and witnesses as requirements for certification of freedom to slaves who desired to leave their owners at will. Statements of assurance and witnesses avoided tensions which would arise between owners and slaves, and between slave owners and missions. In the end, the paper intends to show that the legal abolition of slavery in German East Africa was a long drawn-out process involving struggles between slaves and their owners, individual initiatives, and slaves’ own creation of a legal procedure which had bearing on shaping colonial states’ legal system. In weaving through the legal abolition of slavery in western Tanzania, I will rely on public declarations of slaves and witnesses at Tabora mission between 1907 and the 1920s to show ways in which they had effect on the legal system of Tanganyika. In 1920, following the persistent use of public declarations and witnesses as preconditions for certification of emancipation, the British colonial state enacted Evidence Act, and Oaths and Affirmations Act. The laws were followed by the enactment of the Involuntary Servitude (Abolition) Ordinance of 1922 which legally ended slavery in Tanganyika.
Bios: Salvatory S. Nyanto is Lecturer at the Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam and Post-doctoral fellow, Ghent University. Research interests: Religion and Empire, Slavery and Missionaries, Christian-Muslim Relations. Felicitas Becker is Professor of African history at Gent University, Belgium. She is a specialist in modern East African history with a particular focus on the aftermath of slavery, Islam, poverty and development. Her latest monograph is The politics of poverty (CUP, 2019) and her articles have appeared in Journal of African History, Journal of Global History, Africa, Journal of Religion in Africa and African Studies Review among others. She is primary investigator for the ERC consolidator grant The Aftermath of Slavery in East Africa (ASEA), 2019-2024.
PANEL 4: POST-COLONIAL LEGAL ABOLITIONS: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES
Chair: Uzoamaka Nwachukwu
Can laws end slavery? What happens when laws are passed but are not applied? The three presentations of this panel start with a discussion of the anti-slavery policies and laws passed by Guinée’s first President Sekou Touré, who early in the postcolonial period took a firm stance against traditional hierarchies and legacies of slavery. This is followed by an examination of the contemporary struggles of Malian activists mobilising for the passing of a law criminalising slavery; and a critical assessment of the consequences of Niger’s anti-slavery legislation, where slavery has proven resilient in spite of a developed anti-slavery apparatus.
Economic Rationale for the Abolition of Slavery at Ankober and in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in the 1940s: A Historical Study
Ahmed Hassen
A slave is a person who is the property of others and forced to obey them. Slavery can be defined as a condition in which one human being owns another human being. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons. In Ethiopia, slavery was practiced for centuries. Although Emperor Haile Selassie had already taken various measures to enforce existing antislavery laws, abolition took its real sense when he was restored Emperor of Ethiopia after the Italian occupation (1936-1941) and issued the Slavery (Abolition) Proclamation No. 22 of 1942 in August of that year. The legal, political, and diplomatic aspects of the abolition process in Ethiopia have been, and continue to be, studied. The objective of this article is to focus on the economic rationales of abolition in the country by focusing on Ankober and Addis Ababa in the course of the 1940s. The article discusses instances observed in the Ethiopian archives and oral memories that show that Ethiopian elites preferred wealth in money to having large number of slaves. The cost of keeping them at the domestic level and feeding them alarmed many of the slave owners of the day, as in the capital and main urban centers of Ethiopia the cost of food was skyrocketing. About one fifth of the workers employed in the plantations established by Europeans appear to have been runaway slaves. The social transformation that turned slave owners into landlords seems to have happened alongside the process of abolition. Furthermore, the development of infrastructure and public building led to commercial development. It seems that lorry, wheelbarrow and horse drawn carts replaced slave labor in the country. The presence of mineral prospectors sent by European investors in the country credibly reported to be making things more difficult for slave traders in some provinces. Both primary (archival, written and oral) and secondary sources (existing research outputs) will be examined and further bring to light the topic under consideration by employing alternative historical methods.
Bio: Ahmed Hassen is Professor of History and Director of External Relations at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). His most recent publication is: 2020. Aleyyu Amba: L’Ifat et ses réseaux politiques, religieux et commerciaux au XIXe siècle (vol 6. Annales d’Éthiopie Hors-Séries. Addis Ababa: Editions de Boccard).
The law against slavery in Niger: From the difficulty of adoption to the difficult implementation.
Oumarou Moussa
In view of the latest reports from colonial administrators, the issue of slavery remains a concern on the eve of independence in the French colonies of West Africa. This is proof that colonial abolition was only partial. Thus, depending on the society, slavery continued to manifest itself in various ways in the newly independent States, including Niger. In the postcolonial history of this country, politicians and/or civil society actors imbued with humanitarian and religious values, or for other considerations, led the fight for the eradication of slavery, which necessarily passes through the adoption of a law. The need for such a law had been felt since the First Republic (1958-1974) but the process of its adoption did not come to an end until 2001. Since then, the fight against slavery has garnered results but in a timid way insofar as those who want to follow in the footsteps of Schoelcher have seen so many pitfalls in their path. This contribution aims to analyze the difficulties that plagued the process of adoption of the law and the effectiveness of its application. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of the actors, the results obtained in relation to the fight against slavery, and the obstacles that hinder it.
Bio: Oumarou Moussa is a doctoral student in the history department of Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey. He participated in the PER-slavery research program and defended in 2009 a master's thesis on slavery in Zarma-Soŋay contexts, published on the CODESRIA website. His doctoral research focuses on the influence of Islam on the practice and abolition of slavery in western Niger. In 2019, he published an article in the journal Histoire et archeologie entitled: "slavery and its survivals in the Zarma-Soŋay context since the 19th century, the reasons for its persistence". He is currently participating in the LESLAN program (legacy of slavery in Niger) where he is in charge of research and education. He is an executive of the Ministry of National Education and holds the position of Regional Pedagogical Inspector.