“[I]n Search of their Relations, To Set at Liberty as Many as They Had the Means”: Ransoming Captives in Nineteenth Century Yorubaland

Abstract

The practice of ransoming, which upon payment of a fee or prisoner exchange, restored captives to freedom and prevented their enslavement, was a universal institution. Similar, but different from slave redemption, ransoming prevented the transition of captives into slaves. Captors supported ransoming because it fetched them higher value than the sale of the same captive into slavery. Market forces, as well as the ethnicity, gender, religion, class, and skill of captives among other considerations were all central to successful ransoming operations.