females were part of the harem and were subjected to sexual abuse. Despite the silence from primary sources, historians have examined the sexual dimension of slavery in Muslim societies, analysing the role of eunuchs and concubines. By means of capture in conflicts or purchase, foreign women and children were incorporated into new societies in a subordinate position, generally as maids in the homes of aristocratic families or powerful merchants. Although they worked as farmers or domestic helpers, they were also employed as concubines, a social status which was recognized under Islamic law (Lovejoy, 1988, pp. 245-66). The concentration of concubines in the homes of local elites consolidated social and economic prestige, as these were families with a large numbers of dependents. The children born of these relations were free children, since they inherited their father's legal status as was the norm in Muslim societies. In societies in Southern Africa, local or Portuguese laws did not cover the rights of the enslaved population as was the case for sharia law. We do, however, know that African authorities also consolidated their political and social power by means of the accumulation of dependents, whether freed or enslaved. Travellers highlighted the fact that local authorities - known as sobas - accumulated thirty or forty wives, and even men with limited means kept four or five concubines (Miller, 1988, p. 163, footnote 48). At the end of the eighteenth century, colonial officials recognized the paternity of children born to different mothers (some of whom were enslaved persons) in wills or baptism records. Enslaved trader Antônio José de Barros recorded in his will that any child of his born to his slaves Feliciana, Rosaria, Mariana, Micaela or Joana after his death should be free (Candido, 2014, p. 278). Cases such as this one revealed that enslaved females also provided sexual services to their masters.