Different Conversations about the Same Thing? Source Materials in the Recreation of a Nineteenth-Century Slave-Raiding Landscape, Northern Ghana

Abstract

This chapter examines the slave trade in north-western Ghana during the final decades of the nineteenth century and, more specifically, the history and archaeology of the defensive site of Yalingbong occupied by the community of Kpan/Dolbizan during a time known as the ‘Babatunik Wars’, when the Zaberma leader, Babatu, and his band of raiders waged war upon the region. Here, the documents produced by the colonial officers in the final years of the nineteenth century, and the traditions preserved in the village today, speak to the complexity of the social, political, and economic relationships that existed between networks of sedentary agricultural communities, the bands of slave raiders, and the French and German officers.