This paper proposes an anthropological take on authorship and ‘slave literacy’ by analyzing the reconfigurations of oral narratives into legal testimonies in contemporary West African anti-slavery court cases. These are cases filed by people who are descending from slaves in a post-abolition era, but who continue to be categorized and discriminated against as if they were still slaves. Most cases start by oral narratives of abuse, which are then transferred to anti-slavery organisations such as Anti-slavery international based in London and Timidria based in Niger. The focus will be on how the narrators make claims in their own set of normative references and how, where and why these norms come to be at odds with requirements for the legal testimony.