Slavery in the Global Diaspora of Africa

Description

The collective significance of the themes that are explored in Slavery in the Global Diaspora of Africa bridge the Atlantic and thereby provide insights into historical debates that address the ways in which parts of Africa fitted into the modern world that emerged in the Atlantic basin. The study explores the conceptual problems of studying slavery in Africa and the broader Atlantic world from a perspective that focuses on Africa and the historical context that accounts for this influence. Paul Lovejoy focuses on the parameters of the enforced migration of enslaved Africans, including the impact on civilian populations in Africa, constraints on migration, and the importance of women and children in the movement of people who were enslaved. The prevalence of slavery in Africa and the transformations of social and political formations of societies and political structures during the era of trans-Atlantic migration inform the book’s research. The analysis places Africa, specifically western Africa, at the center of historical change, not on the frontier or periphery of western Europe or the Americas, and provides a global perspective that reconsiders historical reconstruction of the Atlantic world that challenges the distortions of Eurocentrism and national histories. Slavery in the Global Diaspora of Africa will be of interest to scholars and students of colonial history, African history, Diaspora Studies, the Black Atlantic and the history of slavery. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Conceptualizing slavery in Global Africa Maps SECTION I: Issues of enslavement 1 Ethnicity, culture and religion in Global Africa 2 Experiences of the enslaved in Africa 3 Regulation and patterns in collaboration in the slave trade SECTION II: Enforced migration 4 Pawnship, slavery and freedom 5 Concubinage, polygyny and the status of women 6 Children of the slave trade 7 Enslaved Muslims from the central Sudan SECTION III: Life stories of enslavement 8 Trans-Atlantic transformations in identities of Africans 9 Freedom narratives of trans-Atlantic slavery 10 The odyssey of Catherine Mulgrave Zimmermann SECTION IV: Identity and diaspora in global Africa 11 Situating identities: Methodology through the ethnic lens 12 Scarification and the loss of history in the African diaspora 13 Enslaved Africans and their expectations of slave life in the Americas Conclusion: Reflections on the study of slavery Bibliography Index