## Introduction  
The institution of slavery was already present across various African societies and in other parts of the world before its expansion in Europe in the fifteenth century. However, reports do not necessarily examine just how different the jobs performed by enslaved men, women, and children were, nor their different experiences of captivity. The nature of forced work varied according to time and place, and underwent transformations over time. Having visited the coast of Guinea and what are now the banks of the Gambia River along to the Geba River as a representative of the Portuguese Crown, Luís Cadamosto described the use of enslaved labour among the Mandingo and Jolof peoples, as well as the trade in human beings. According to Cadamosto,
this [Jolof] King also lives off the theft of enslaved persons ordered by him both in his own country and in neighbouring countries for a number of different purposes, particularly the development of certain dependent territories that are delegated to him and the sale of such persons to the Azengues and Arab merchants, who exchange them for horses and other items [...] The King can keep as many women as he wishes, as it is for all men from these lands to have as many women as they can sustain; to which end, the King always has at least thirty (Cadamosto, 1944, p. 26; Da Costa e Silva, 2002; Stilwell, 2014).  
This report reveals the coexistence of two markets for African slaves: the trans-Saharan market, which supplied the societies of Northern Africa and the Mediterranean with an enslaved sub-Saharan workforce, and the Atlantic market.