The Sahara and North Africa in the Nineteenth Century: The Views of Dorugu Kwage Adamu and Nicholas Said

The autobiographies of Dorugu Kwage Adamu and Nicholas Said contain material of interest to the student of social and economic history in various parts of Africa. Yet scholars who have contributed to the literature on Dorugu, the literature on Said, the literature on slavery in Africa, the literature on trans- Saharan commerce, the literature on African representations of “others,” and the literature on the history of race in North Africa have not comprehensively mined the autobiographies in question for details on the Sahara and North Africa. This paper addresses this gap and ensures that the subjects stay in focus by sketching the biographical background of Dorugu Kwage Adamu and Nicholas Said, by describing their travel across the Sahara to North Africa, and by presenting their opinions about migration, slavery, race, and gender in nineteenth-century North Africa. The paper suggests several things, including that life experiences shape the way that people perceive “others” and that comments on enslaved and freeborn West Africans outside their homeland in the accounts of the subjects under study confirm the view that enslaved West Africans were not integrated into North Africa.