There is very little in the precolonial record concerning women's trade in Sub-Saharan Africa. Studies of long distance trade rarely included women, mentioning them only in so far as they were slaves. Precolonial histories have tended to exclude such topics as market women, evidently with the assumption that women's trade is a uniquely modern phenomenon or unworthy of examination (Robertson 1997, 24). However, Sub-Saharan African women have made important contributions to all forms of trade and market activities from the precolonial period through colonialism to the present.

Women…