# Said's life as a slave  
Prior to Said's enslavement, long-distance commerce involving the movement of commodities toward the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts had been an important part of the economy of central Sudan, including Borno. Tuareg and other merchants responsible for the movement of these commodities across the Sahara were also slave traders, and historical sources reveal that slaves were acquired in war and sometimes through kidnapping. ${ }^{4}$ This was Said's fate. One day when Said and his friends were hunting near Lake Chad, Tuareg raiders kidnapped him and some of his friends. As Said notes, while he may have already been technically a slave because of the official status of his father, on that day, he became a slave subjected to the slave trade.  
Said never returned to Borno subsequently and never saw his mother again, although he apparently had the opportunity to do so. The Tuareg raiders moved  
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[^0]:    4 For further details on long-distance trade and central Sudan see, for instance, Adamu, 1978 and Lovejoy and Baier, 1975.