My Life as a Slave (capture to the Auction)

MY INTRODUCTION TO SLAVERY

We don't have the same limitations as other people of different tribes do. I am a free woman, or shall I say I was a free woman. I am the wife of our tribes chief –Jankay Boto, that's where I got my surname, Boto. Before my marriage I was a Touray. My father, or Paupa, was the chief of the tribe Adance. The two tribes, Adance and Denkyira, my husband's tribe, are in the same village, Juffure. The two tribes have been friends for as long as anyone can remember, I mean they have been friends for since like ever. That's how I got married into this tribe. As these tribes are very close to each other I can visit my Paupa's house whenever I want. I, being the daughter of the tribes chief, was allowed to study but up till a certain age and when that age I came I wasn't willing to stop my studies but my father and my brother wanted me to leave school and help my mom in the rice plantations. However this didn't satisfy me, so I oppose this idea up till my male relatives agreed on me having further studies and I did succeed, thanks to my mom. Now I teach to small children in my tribe and they are quite happy with me. My students include my 2 children, Brima and Saloum. I do more of religion there, I teach my students about Islam –my religion. My name is Yaisa Boto, and now you will learn about my life in detail.

I had a very respected position in my tribe. People came up to me for consultancy because of my high experience of life. Apart from teaching I also did some house works with my slaves. I did not want to lay a heavy burden on their shoulders, I believed in justice not injustice. My husband and I had a couple of fights involving the slaves; he disagreed on the fact that I had to work with them but I ignored him. I did not want the slaves to do a lot of work. They just cleaned the house prepared the meal and did other such things. My slaves were not treated as slave; they lived in a comfy condition, they were never mistreated. I never saw them as slaves. The only two things that gave them this name, slave, were that they weren't paid and they didn't have the right to own property. I was never harsh towards them. It is the most hateful thing in my sight. I have seen a number of slaves leaving in terrible conditions in different households. Seeing them in that condition made my soul tremble with fear, with the fear of being in their place. They weren't treated as humans. Slaves were, normally, either prisoners of war or criminals. They were turned to slaves as most people thought that they had lost their right of freedom by getting involved in crimes. This was the case in many households but not mine. When I place my self in their position, I feel like killing my self, I cannot

live in those terrible conditions. Anyways, so to lessen the work of my slaves, not to a very high extent though, I help them at home and do some the work outside the house.

One day, one of my slaves, Ahmed, came up to me and said, " Madame, there is no water at home for cooking nor there is any for any other thing, if I have your permission can I go and draw some water from the well across the village."

"No, Ahmed u can't," I replied " as you can see that I am free, and have no such task coming up that will keep me busy, so I can go and get the water from the well."

" But Madame, it's not safe for you. Haven't you heard of the raiders raiding villages and capturing villagers from their houses?"

" I have heard about it, Ahmed. But if its not safe for me its not safe for you either. So you stay right here and look after Brima and Binta. And I would seriously dislike any further arguments."

"Yes Madame I can't go against you, can I"

I asked him to get two buckets from the cooking room, which he did. Later he explained me the safer route to the well, which I listened carefully. After he was done with his explaining, I left for my journey.

The safer route was longer than the original route. I had been walking for the past whole hour and I couldn't take it anymore so I decided to change routes and take the shorter one instead, the dangerous one. I took the route thinking that I'm the daughter of the chief of tribe Adance and wife of the chief of tribe Denkyira and nothing could happen to me but I hade forgotten two things. One, that not everyone understood all the different languages different people spoke and two, that I was a female. I mean I was not of the same social class as the males of my families were. These two things were completely out of my mind when I had stepped on the route full of obstacles. On my way to the well, I passed a village. In it I saw people of the same colour groups (I mean