Hawthorne, Walter. "The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815". Slavery and Abolition, Vol.20, No.2 (1999): 97-124.

Hawthorne, Walter. "The production of slaves where there was no state: The Guinea‐Bissau region, 1450–1815". Slavery and Abolition, Vol.20, No.2 (1999): 97-124.

• Most historians argue that slavery led to the strengthening and centralization of power for most African states, which developed strong militaries to capture slaves, and strong bureaucratic structures to control the main slaving routes as well as the distribution of valuable manufactured imports (97).
• The author argues that these activities were not limited the powerful African states, but also common among the 'stateless' peoples outside of major African empires. In Guinea-Bissau, this was largely driven by economic motives as valuable iron could be procured most easily through trade for slaves (97-98).
• The author uses Dr. Robin Horton's definition of a 'stateless society' is characterize the Upper Guinea coast from Gambia to Liberia. It is defined as a society in which authority diffuse, limited in scope, coercive force is rare, and they is not professional, full-time ruler (98-99).
• Obviously, this definition is full of colonial concepts that reflect an uncritical examination of contemporary writings. It is better to think of these societies as largely rural and with weak administrative control likely based on wealth or authority more than institutional position.
• Most analyses blame the impetus for slavery on the elites of African society, as Dr. Walter Rodney claims, "The responsibility for the slave trade, as far as Africans themselves bear part of this responsibility, lies squarely upon the shoulders of the tribal rulers and elites. They were in alliance with the European slave merchants and it was upon the mass of the people that they jointly preyed" (101).
• This same professor, along with other scholars, argue that much of the large-scale slave hunting was organized by powerful elites and monarchs in Africa. This certainly affect the Guinea region, as many coastal areas were decimated by large-scale raid organized by centralized monarchies in the Mali river basin (101).
• Records show that prior to the late-1700s, most slaves purchased from the Upper Guinea region had originated in the coastal delta regions without centralized slaving states (102). This began to change following jihads in the West African interior which destroyed old slaving empires and created a new system of long-distance trade routes from the interior towards the port of Guinea-Bissau (103).
• The switch towards long-distance slave routes from the interior, however, did not entirely destroy slaving in the coastal regions of Upper Guinea, as slavers continue recording slaves from that region until the abolition of the trade (103).
• "Guinea-Bissau was an important centre for slave exports. During some periods before the seventeenth century, it produced more slaves than any other region in Africa" (104).
• Records indicate that some of the main exploiters of the coastal people of Upper Guinea were the kings of Cassanga in southern Senegal, who frequently raided settlements between coastal rivers and sold these people into slavery for horses and European goods (105).
• The King of Cassanga also created slaves through judicial proceedings, as the King changed laws so that the default punishment for crimes became slavery, and ultimately sale to the Portuguese. The punishment was especially common for rising elites who the King feared, as he forced them and their families into slavery and was allowed to seize their possessions (105-106, 110).
• Common accusations, such as witchcraft, also resulted in the punishment of slavery and seizure of one's property by the state (106). It is unclear, but likely, that accusers also received some benefit or reward for their role.
• Local elites, usually the same merchants who conducted the slave trade, replicated these systems of judicial enslavement in the decentralized polities of the coastal deltas (110-111). Some villages also used these mock trials to send unwanted elements or village troublemakers into slavery, and receive iron in return (111).
• The kings of African states received enormous wealth from the slave trade, placing them far above the average subject. Accordingly, they could easily bribe rivals, subordinates, and soldiers with promise of access to the massive wealth (106).
• The slave trade was also one of the best ways to acquire iron, horses, or European weapons that gave the state an advantage in warfare and allowed them to subject even more people to slave raids (106).
• European travelers during the time provide some evidence that groups in the river deltas of Gambia and Guinea-Bissau were able to successful fight off the Cassanga forces during the 1700s, as talk of a defeat near the Rio Cacheu was mentioned. They also seem to have seized a number of European crafts on that river (106-107).
• Several factors combined to allow less organized polities to defeat the Cassanga, firstly that the delta region is marshy and difficult to operate in, especially for cavalry. The tsetse fly was also common there, killing many horses. Without artillery or cavalry, the raiders may also have been unable to take many fortified villages in the region (107).
• Many of the smaller polities of the Upper Guinean coast participated in the slaver trade in order to obtain the guns needed to effectively defend themselves from raids by larger states. This in turn may have fueled an arms race between weaker polities needing to engage in raiding to defend themselves from raiding (108).
• As noted by Dr. John Thornton, the importation of European guns likely did not make a major difference considering their relative ineffectiveness during this period without maintenance parts. More important was the importation of European iron to create more effective swords, spears, and other weapons (108, 118).
• Whereas the coastal peoples of the Upper Guinea originally got iron by trading salt and seafood to interior kingdoms with more abundant iron supplies, the entrance of Portuguese traders changed the dynamics and introduced much more iron. The Portuguese, however, demanded ivory, beeswax, and slaves, prompting coastal economies to shift to fit these new export demands (108-109).
• Portuguese records indicate that the demand for iron on the coast of Upper Guinea was immense and that European merchants often bought iron from other parts of Africa in exchange for slaves in Upper Guinea. In the 1600s, iron made up half of all imports into Senegambia, and was adopted as a currency by local kingdoms, furthering demand (109).
• Iron was so valuable for practical reasons, however it was rare in local supplies, so the only people with iron were the merchants trading with the Portuguese. This meant that they were the wealthiest members of society and could outfit militias the best, allowing them to perpetuate the slave trade locally by attacking neighbors (109-110).
• Records from the 1500s show that the Bijagos Islands, off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, were one of the most important slaving areas of that time period (111). They remained this way into the 1800s at least (114), with British vessels and coastal people subject to raids by the Bijagos islanders (111).
• The Bijagos islanders were such successful slavers that by the 1600s, their islands had been transformed into a marketplace frequented by Portuguese, British, Netherlandish, French, and Spanish slave-merchants (112). Among the small population of the islanders, imported goods were widely circulated and common (113).
• Despite having a decentralized political structure, perhaps based on nobility or simply on wealth dynamics, the Bijagos islanders were sometimes more successful raiders than centralized kingdoms. Most raids also appear to have been small-scale affairs by families, villages, or local raiding parties (113).
• The Biafada people of the South coast of Guinea-Bissau were both the primary victims of slave raiding by the Bijagos islanders, and slavers in their own right in the 1500s and 1600s, controlling two extremely profitable ports on the Rio Grande and English records indicate that they sold slaves to European well into the 1700s (115).
• The power of the Biafada polities seems to have been weak outside of the slaving ports, with many criminal gangs of raiders travelling the Rio Grande capturing and selling slaves on their own initiative (116-117).
• There were many ways in which the Biafada captured slaves, including tricking their neighbors or relations into visiting them and then selling them during the night, and using slavery as a punishment for certain crimes -- often witchcraft, which could be leveled on any disliked individual (117).
• "Indeed, the Atlantic slave trade was insidious because its affects penetrated deep into the social fabric of the Upper Guinea Coast - beyond the level of the state and to the level of the village and household. The trade opened up the possibility for people holding power at all levels of society - and on the margins of society - to direct that power toward seizing captives. Hence, in many areas, the slave trade pitted neighbour against neighbour, village against village, maroon against former master. [...]  At the village or chieftaincy level, the slave trade provided the local elites, who held sway over judicial institutions, with a way to profit by convicting people to sale for a variety of crimes. At the household level, the trade gave knowledgeable insiders power over lost outsiders. On edges of society, the trade gave outcasts, maroons, and the desperately poor and greedy 'illegitimate' outlets through which they could enrich themselves" (117-118).