Women and trade in the Nupe–Borgu region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Abstract

ABSTRACT Women played a pivotal role in the economies of the Nupe–Borgu region (today, Nigeria and the Republic of Benin), a major slave supply area and transit hub for caravans and traders connecting to both the trans-Saharan and the transatlantic trade during the nineteenth century. Many not only managed households but also operated as local and long-distance traders, porters, foodstuff suppliers and financial brokers. Both contemporaneous narratives, written by men and with a male gaze, and scholarship about the region relegate women and their histories to the very margins of society. The article is based on travelers’ accounts stemming from the nineteenth century and on ethnographic studies and archival documents from the early British colonial period of the twentieth century. It brings women back into the social history of this region and demonstrates that female merchants and businesswomen were the major agents in local and long-distance trade, playing an important part in the economies of West Africa.