# Women's roles in production in Africa and the diaspora  
Among the Balanta people in the Senegambia region, enslaved females weeded, planted, milled, cleaned and cooked cereals such as rice, which was essential to the local diet (Hawthorne, 2010, p. 137). They also collected and processed raw materials and worked as artisans and in retail (Kriger, 2017, p. 106). Among the Aros in the Biafra region, free women acquired enslaved females for assistance with domestic work and in the production of foodstuffs (Ugo Nwokeji, 2010, pp. 57-158). In São Jorge da Mina port (Elmina Castle) on the Gold Coast, enslaved females were in charge of cleaning and preparing foodstuffs, as well as laundering clothes and looking after European traders and workers, as well as Africans to be sold to slave ships (Shumway, 2014, pp. 91-92.). In inland Southern Africa, enslaved females worked in the cultivation and processing of cassava (Vansina, 1983, p. 108). In Angola, they were employed as farmers, seamstresses, cooks, laundresses and greengrocers (Freudenthal, 2011, pp. 197229; Oliveira, 2014, pp. 265-67). ${ }^{2}$ In the records of enslaved persons available for Caconda in the interior of Benguela, in 1854 only one enslaved female is listed with a recognized occupation, and that is Francisca, a young seamstress originally from Quilengues (Candido, 2011, pp. 213-22; Guedes and Pontes, 2013, pp. 153-80). ${ }^{3}$ The majority of enslaved females worked in the cultivation of foodstuffs and in domestic tasks, enjoying fewer opportunities than men for participating in urban retail activities, with the exception of greengrocers, who spent their days selling fish, vegetables or premade foods in the streets, sharing these activities with free women (Pantoja, 2001, pp. 45-68; Oliveira, 2015, pp. 57-81). Although enslaved males would also have performed domestic tasks, ranging from cleaning homes and looking after children to working as nurses, these were normally delegated to enslaved females.