and fisheries, the military, politics and entertainment. Although the concept of possession is fundamental to slavery, the domestic rules and dominant social, economic, communal and geographical orders were detrimental in defining local slavery. Enslaved Africans had to adapt to often quite different local cultural circumstances by learning new dialects and adopting new religions and communal mores. Labour realities differed profoundly in rural and urban settings. It is not surprising, therefore, that such varyingly different environmental and geographical paradigms resulted in such different communitarian experiences.