Paper short abstract:

This study looks to advance discussions on combative labor in the fields of labor history and slavery by comparing and contrasting the forms and outcomes of combat for those in Africa and the Americas who fought to secure status while bolstering the establishments responsible for their enslavement.

Paper long abstract:

This study investigates the unique relationship between labor and combat in Africa and the Americas during the early modern era, comparing and contrasting the forms and outcomes of combative labor among enslaved populations for whom fighting was an occupation. Combative labor - defined here as productive work through the deliberate and systematic application of martial skills - has hardly figured in labor historiography. Studies dealing with combat practices under slavery at best speak only to other historiographies. We propose to advance discussions about combative labor within the fields of labor history and slavery. Scholars of combative systems among enslaved populations of the Americas generally limit themselves to the artistic, symbolic and rebellious dimensions of slave combat while overlooking or deemphasizing its productive aspects. Africanists have sometimes seen the service of slave armies in terms of productive labor - Richard Roberts in particular has analyzed this service in the context of slave-raiding and the sourcing of war captives as production in the Senegambian region - however such studies stop short of situating combat within explicit labor historiographies or "following" slave combat into the diaspora. The comparative approach that we propose here reveals continuities and discontinuities as well as similarities and differences in combative labor between Africa and the Americas, despite the variations that existed between slave systems on either side of the Atlantic. Defending and bolstering establishments responsible for their enslavement in order to gain status and rewards was a widespread feature of slave systems in both Africa and the Americas.