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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Impact of British Imperialism on the Landscape of Female Slavery in the Kano Palace, Northern Nigeria
Author:Nast, Heidi J.ISNI
Year:1994
Periodical:Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:64
Issue:1
Pages:34-73
Language:English
Geographic terms:Nigeria
Northern Nigeria
Great Britain
Subjects:female slaves
colonialism
abolition of slavery
History and Exploration
Women's Issues
Labor and Employment
Historical/Biographical
Cultural Roles
slavery
Sex Roles
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/1161094
Abstract:Spatial analysis of the Kano palace shows that colonial abolitionist policies enacted in northern Nigeria after the British conquest of 1903 affected the lives and places of female and male slaves differently. The differences derived from historical differences in the placement and function of slave women and men in the palace: whereas slave women lived and/or worked in a vast secluded private domain and engaged in State household reproduction on behalf of the emir, male State slaves inhabited 'public' places and held State-related offices. Colonial abolitionist policies, which restructured traditional 'public' spheres of State, accordingly forcefully altered male slave spaces while the private domain of female slavery initially went largely undisturbed. In time, as palace slave patronage was more severely undermined, domestic slave women left the palace to follow slave husbands and/or heads of households who had been exiled or who were in search of better outside opportunities, resulting in a decrease in the reserve of slave women from which concubines were chosen. The reserve declined further as slave men were permitted to marry freeborn women, resulting in a marked decrease in concubine numbers and a marked transformation of the internal organization of the inner household. The spatial organization of female slavery in the palace was thus affected indirectly and later than that of male slavery. The data presented in this article were collected during a two-year field study of the Kano palace (1988-1990). Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
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