Slavery Debates Demystifying "Islamic Slavery": Using Legal Practices to Reconstruct the End of Slavery in Fes, Morocco R. David Goodman Abstract: This article uses Muslim court records from Fes, Morocco, to challenge the concept of "Islamic slavery." Analysis of legal actions containing references to domestic slaves for nearly six decades (1913-1971) uncovers an era of emancipa- tion without public historical watersheds bvit rather with a subtle, gradual accumu- lation of changes in social processes. After discussing the background on slavery in Morocco and the limitations of "Islamic slavery," notarized family court records are examined to demonstrate that slavery did not end as a consequence of official changes to laws (French or Moroccan), nor through masters granting their slaves legal manumissions. Rather, it is argued that domestic slavery ended at a stag- gered pace amid social, familial and personal changes more observable through attention to the dynamics across households and generations than to administra- tive policies or external legal forces. Résumé: Cet article conteste la notion d'"esclavage islamique » en s'appuyant sur les sources d'archives des tribunaux musulmans de Fès, au Maroc. Les actions juridiques engagées pendant près de six décennies (1913-1971) ayant trait aux esclaves domestiques révèlent une période de l'émancipation caractérisée par une accumulation graduelle de processus de changement social plutôt que par des grands tournants de l'histoire. Après avoir esquissé en arrière-plan les contextes de l'esclavage au Maroc et les limites de "l'esclavage islamique," l'on examine les dossiers notariés des tribunaux de la famille. L'on démontre ainsi que l'esclavage n'aurait pas pris fin à la suite de changements apportés aux lois officielles (françaises ou marocaines), ni d'affranchissements juridiques promus par les maitres d'esclaves. Au contraire, il apparait que l'esclavage domestique s'est History in Africa, Volume 39 (2012), pp. 145-174 R. David Goodman is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of World History at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. He currently is revising his PhD disserta- tion on Afro-Maghribi history into a book manuscript, tentatively entided, "The Ambiguous End of Domestic Slavery in Morocco: Households, Families, and Social Change in Fes." 143 144 History in Africa épuisé progressivement et de manière décalée. Ceci se serait produit au milieu de trajectoires de changement collectives, familiales et individuelles qui semblent émerger plutôt des dynamiques inter-ménagères et inter-générationnelles que des politiques administratives ou de forces juridiques externes. Introduction! There w^as never a clear historical end to slavery in Morocco. The struggles of slaves and their complex identities never came to be expressed through a significant public discourse or an overt organized social movement fixed on abolition, as occurred in many other contexts. During the French Pro- tectorate over Morocco (1912-1956) the largest single slave owner was the Moroccan monarchy (the Makhzan), and other Moroccan elites also kept slaves, largely in the domestic sphere. Colonial policies and royal decrees proclaimed that slavery had ended, but these statements, such as the 1923 Protectorate Circular and several Moroccan Dahirs (decrees) of that era, were limited by design and remained unenforced.2 Ending the ongoing clandestine slave trade never became a French administrative priority, and domestic slavery came to be redefined by administrators and slave owners as a "voluntary" condition. In effect, colonial authorities maintained an official position of prohibiting the public sale of slaves while not interfer- ing within Moroccan households. Nevertheless, over time domestic slavery became an anomaly and ended as a social institution in the decades fol- lowing independence.'^ Critical analysis of Moroccan legal practices helps document this ambiguous history. Moroccan legal authorities in sharä'a courts shaped the complex contours of slave status and its transformation over time. In discussing slavery and abolition, this article focuses on evidence in Muslim court records and consciously avoids the term "Islamic slavery," a notion 1 I wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers of a draft of this article for their insightñil and practical comments. 2 Circular 17 S.G.P., 21 September 1923, Bibliotiièque Générale et Archives du Maroc (BGA). Handwritten drafts and official copies, listing tbe offices to wbicb this circular was distributed, all confinning tbis date, are deposited at tbe BGA in Rabat. Perbaps due to a long compounded confusion caused by poor handwriting in memos concerning the circular, it has erroneously been cited as 1922, bodi by some subsequent Protectorate administrators and scholars in gen- eral. Also see: Commandant Noël Maestracci, Le Maroc Contemporain: Guide à l'usage de tous les Officiers et particulièrement à l'usage des Officiers des affaires indigènes et des Fonctionnaires du protectorat (Paris, Charles-Lavauzelle & Cie, 1928), 164. ^ This history is examined in my book manuscript, "The Ambiguous End of Domestic Slavery in Morocco: Households, Families, and Social Change in Fes." Using Legal Practices to Reconstruct the End of Slavery in Fes, Morocco 145 that resonates closely with colonial representations and obscures more than it reveals. Analysis of legal records uncovers an era of emancipation without public historical watersheds but rather with a subtie, gradual accu- mulation of changes in social processes. This article begins with back- ground on slavery in Morocco and moves to discuss the term "Islamic slav- ery" and its limitations. Then it examines legal actions containing refer- ences to domestic slaves for nearly six decades (1913-1971) in Fes."* These notarized family court records demonstrate that slavery did not end as a consequence of official changes to laws (French or Moroccan), nor through masters granting their slaves legal manumissions: domestic slav- ery ended at a staggered pace amid social, familial and personal changes more observable through attention to the dynamics across households and generations than to administrative policies or external legal forces. This use of legal evidence may offer an approach to constructing an his- torical framework from which to interpret the lives and experiences of slaves and their children within and beyond comparable Adantic, Islamic and African worlds. Situating the End of Domestic Slavery in Morocco A prevalent historical schema of the end of slavery posits an anti-slavery struggle featuring notable figures, acts and movements advocating univer- sal principals and societal ideals; an official declaration of abolition clearly demarcating a legal periodization and induction into international con- ventions rejecting slavery; and a legal context of mandated state interven- tion and enforced adherence to new standards of freedom and equality of former slaves and their descendants. In our context, and in very many oth- ers, this historical schema is misconceived and misleading.^ Colonial his- tory, with particular attention here to West Africa, helps to examine con- ceptual and methodological problems raised by the end of slavery in Morocco within the wider established research on emancipation in Africa. Nineteenth century French experiences in Algeria and West Africa led to broad patterns in French colonial policy toward slavery focused on abol- ishing the slave trade as a gradual means of ending slavery, while avoiding '^ Striking an arbitrary balance between convention and consistency with dari- jah (Moroccan Arabic), the place name Fes has been used (rather than Fez), while the term Fasi has been used for its inhabitants (rather than Fesi). '"' See Frederick Cooper, Thomas C. Holt and Rebecca J. Scott, Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Postemancipation Societies (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2000). Historians continuing to probe this theme are represented by a recent conference at Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center, Beyond Freedom: New Directions in the Study of Emancipation (11-12 November 2011) and a symposium Slavery, Race and Gender in Islamic Societies; A Compara- tive Perspective (17-18 March 2012) at Princeton University. 146 History in Africa more direct forms of interference, including within elite Muslim domestic slave owning households.*" Despite, and alongside implementation of gradualist policies, slavery expanded during the end of the nineteenth century, and continued to play a central role within political, military and economic life in many parts of West Africa. Trans-Saharan Moroccan slave markets were directly connected to these currents, as evidenced by the surge and historic peak of West African born slaves imported in the last decade of the nineteenth-century.' By contrast, though there were "drudge" and military slaves in then independent Morocco, present research suggests the preponderance of slaves at this time worked within households, serving as more of a consummation of political and aristo- cratic power than as a material basis of economic power or state struc- tures.'^ In this key sense, the West African prevalence of peasant slave own- •* See Christopher Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa, 1860-1960 (Cam- bridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988). Emblematic of the contrasting views this orientation encompassed Harrison notes on page 202: "Mgr. Lavigerie empha- sized the relationship between slavery and Islam, yet Louis-Gustave