In this article I explain a nexus between slavery and state formation in Africa, proceeding from initial demographic and institutional conditions to an external demand shift, individual state responses, and their collective systemic consequences. Historically, African rulers faced distinctive challenges: low population density prioritized control of people more than territory, and internal disintegration was often a greater threat than external conquest. A massive expansion in the demand for slaves offered African rulers increased opportunities to use external resources for “outside-in” state building. Many did so by creating highly militarized predatory slaving states. The collective consequence was heightened systemic insecurity. Variation in the timing of these developments reflected regional and historical variation in the expansion of the demand for slaves. Slaving states appeared first in West Africa, reflecting the late-seventeenth-century expansion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, before spreading to East Africa a century later, following the parallel later increase in the Indian Ocean slave trade. This “outside-in” path to state formation both parallels and contrasts with contemporary postcolonial state formation.

在本文中，我解释了非洲奴隶制与国家形成之间的联系，从最初的人口和制度条件到外部需求的转变、个别国家的反应及其集体系统性后果。从历史上看，非洲统治者面临着独特的挑战：人口密度低，对人民的控制比对领土的控制更重要，内部瓦解往往比外部征服更具威胁。对奴隶需求的大规模增长为非洲统治者提供了更多利用外部资源进行“由外而内”国家建设的机会。许多国家通过建立高度军事化的掠夺性奴隶国家来做到这一点。集体后果是系统性不安全感加剧。这些发展时间的变化反映了奴隶需求扩张的区域和历史差异。奴隶制国家首先出现在西非，反映了 17 世纪末跨大西洋奴隶贸易的扩张，一个世纪后，随着印度洋奴隶贸易的平行增长，奴隶制国家蔓延到东非。这种“由外而内”的国家形成路径与当代后殖民国家形成既相似又相反。