The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 | Page 2

the natural division of the continent into distinct economic zones.
Immediately under the equator is a wide area of heavy rainfall and
dense forest. The rapidity and rankness of vegetable growth renders the
region unsuited to agriculture. But the plentiful streams abound in fish
and the forests in animals and fruits. The banana and plantain grow
there in superabundance, and form the chief diet of the inhabitants. This
may be called, for convenience, the banana zone. To the north and
south of this zone are broad areas of less rainfall and forest, with a dry
season suitable to agriculture. These may be called the agriculture

zones. Still further to the north and south are areas of very slight
rainfall and almost no forests, suitable for pasturage. Here cattle
flourish in great numbers. These may be called the pastoral zones.
These zones stretch horizontally across the continent except in case of
the cattle zones, which, on account of the mountainous character of
East Africa, include the plateau extending from Abyssinia to the
Zambesi river. Each of these zones gives rise to different types of men,
and different characteristics of economic organization, of family life,
government, religion, and art.
In the banana zone nature is extremely bountiful. The people subsist
mostly upon the spontaneous products. A small expenditure of effort
will support a vast population. Agriculture is very little practiced. Here
the effort to live would seem to be easier and more agreeable than in
any other part of the world, so that man would not be under pressure to
enslave his kind. But alas, the work of gathering and transporting the
fruits, of the preparation and cooking them, as well as the bringing
home and cooking of the game, the building of houses, etc., is not
altogether pleasant. It is uninteresting, and the heat and the humidity of
the climate render it almost insupportable in certain seasons and hours
of the day. The repugnance to labor of tropical people, whether natives
or white immigrants, is proverbial. Every one in the banana zone,
therefore, seeks to shift his burden upon another. As a first resort, he
unloads it upon his wife, and she, finding it grievous, cries out, and he
then relieves her by procuring additional wives. This kind of
wife-slavery suffices for the support of the population in this zone, but
in the case of families of rank, who have been accustomed to some
degree of luxury, other helpers are needed, and these form a class of
domestic slaves. Now, in this zone, the climatic conditions not only
render labor disagreeable but tend to curb aspiration, so that people do
not acquire a taste or demand for products which minister to the higher
nature. Lassitude keeps the standard of living down to a low level.
Hence, in this zone the labor of women suffices, for the most part, for
the maintenance of the population. Since land is free and no one will
voluntarily work for another, such additional workers as are needed
must be obtained and bound to the master by coercion.

In this zone two very remarkable consequences follow from the fact
that very few slaves are needed for workers. The first is the practice of
cannibalism, once universal in this zone, and still in vogue throughout
vast regions. The bountiful food supply attracts immigrants from all
sides, and the result is a condition of chronic warfare. When one tribe
defeats another the question arises, What is to be done with the
prisoners? As they cannot be profitably employed as industrial workers,
they are used to supplement a too exclusive vegetable diet. Wars come
to be waged expressly for the sake of obtaining human flesh for food.
The Monbuttu eat a part of their captives fallen in battle, and butcher
and carry home the rest for future consumption. They bring home
prisoners not to reduce to slavery but as butcher-meat to garnish future
festivals.
A second consequence of the limited demand for slaves is that war
captives are sold to foreigners. Adjacent to the banana zone are zones
of agriculture, where slaves are in great request, and, during the
European connection with the slave trade, the normal demand for
slaves in this zone was greatly heightened. Among the Niam Niam all
prisoners belong to the monarch. He sells the women and keeps the
children for slaves. Hence, the banana zone has been the great reservoir
for supplying slaves to other parts of the world. Hundreds of thousands
of slaves came from this zone to the West Indies, and to the slave states
of North and South America. In Dahomey and Ashanti war captives
used to be sold "en bloc" to white traders at so much per capita.
In the agricultural zones to the north and south nature is more niggardly,
though she