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[^0]:    2 Besides Austin's work, other studies that primarily draw on this source include Diouf, 1998 and Gomez, 2005.  
The political history of Borno indicates that the State often recruited officers from among slaves and that each slave officer was given the title of Kachella. Al-Kanemi, after assuming power as the de facto ruler of Borno, further empowered those holding the position of Kachella, so that many of them became powerful military generals, controlling regiments consisting of thousands of followers (Bovill, 1966, vol. 3, p. 321; Cohen, 1967, pp. 20-29; Fisher, 2001, pp. 245-56). Said's report suggests that his father was one of the most powerful Kachella in early nineteenth-century Borno, but the fact that his father held this specific political title also indicates his slave status. In addition to internal evidence from Said's narrative, extant primary and secondary sources confirm that his father, Kachella Barka Gana was a devout Muslim as well as a royal slave appointed by al-Kanemi. According to these sources, although Barka Gana was wealthy and a capable military commander, he was dispossessed of his position and wealth when al-Kanemi became displeased with him in the 1820s, at the time British Ambassador Dixon Denham visited Borno. Barka Gana was, nevertheless, reinstated to that position after the intervention of al-Kanemi's companions (Brenner, 1973, pp. 45-46, 100-101, 245-46.).