Leaving the master and into the desert. Slave escapes in the Spanish Sahara: slave initiatives and colonial attitudes

This article presents case studies of slaves' escapes in the Spanish Sahara, between the 1930s and the early 1950s. It shows that while Spanish authorities were often ready to help slaves attain their freedom, this depended on slaves taking the initiative themselves. Therefore, when the Spanish practiced emancipation, they did so reactively rather than proactively. This reality was confounded by the fact that while the Spanish combated trafficking and helped escapees, they also tolerated the existence of the institution of slavery and masked that existence using creative terminology that turned slaves into 'relatives'.