Trans-Saharan Trade

Abstract

Trade in the Sahara is as old as its current human occupation. The many different and often highly specialized ways in which Saharans have pursued their livelihoods since the region developed its current hyper-aridity roughly three thousand years ago, from settled agriculture to pastoral nomadism via intermediate forms, all fundamentally rely on mobility and exchange over short, medium, and long distances. Oases were established to facilitate trade, but they could not survive without sustained exchange with pastoral and trading economies. Pastoral nomads relied on sedentary outlets in their economic and migratory cycles. This simple observation has several implications for trans-Saharan trade: One, although historical periods can be identified when trans-Saharan trade visibly increased, in particular areas and for historically specific reasons, it is difficult and probably counterproductive to search for the origins of trans-Saharan trade as such. Two, the kind of trade that is most familiar from Arabic and European sources—namely, the trade in trans-Saharan luxuries—was only the tip of the iceberg of more stable patterns of exchange, much of which concerned rather mundane staples such as cereals, salt, and dates. The decline of visible, trans-Saharan trade at any particular moment and in any particular place hence does not imply the decline of all forms of Saharan trade. Three, thinking needs to extend beyond north–south axes, so that patterns of connectivity—which might just as easily stretch east or west—can be analyzed in their own terms. Four, all trade should not be assumed as necessarily trans-Saharan, that is to say, carrying goods produced beyond the Sahara across it to the other side, but Saharan production and consumption, also with regards to the enslaved, need to be taken into account. In turn, this means that Saharan trade should not be conceived of as in any way external to Saharan societies but as part and parcel of broader political, social, and economic logics, where calculations of material profits were not always the main driving force. Kin ties and marital alliances, and hence women, played major parts in this. Much of this is still true today, allowing transregional practice of exchange to continue in new forms, despite profound technological changes—from camel caravans to trucks—and the contemporary economic and political weight of postcolonial nation-states and their borders throughout the region. The current criminalization of all trans-Saharan activities, mostly through foreign military or diplomatic intervention, therefore cannot but have disastrous consequences for the region as a whole.