Slavery, Resistance, and Identity in Early Modern West Africa

Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-009-28234-5
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 452 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 798 g

Reihe: African Identities: Past and Present

Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, more than fifteen million people were uprooted from West Africa and enslaved in the Trans-Saharan and Transatlantic slave systems The state of Gajaage, located on the West African hinterland, offered a doorway to the Atlantic Ocean and played a central role in the wide-scale trade system that connected the histories of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Focussing on the Soninke of Gajaaga, Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré demonstrates how their resistance to the slave trades led to the formation of a united community bound by an awareness of identity. This original study expands our understanding of the various modes of resistance West Africans employed to stem the encroaching tide of Arab imperializing efforts, European mercantile capitalism, and the Atlantic slave trade, whilst also highlighting how ethnic and religious identities were constructed and mobilized in the region.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Traoré, Makhroufi Ousmane

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part I. Between the Sahara and the Atlantic Ocean: 1. The ethnic-state of Gajaaga; 2. African slavery versus the slave trade(s); Part II. Atlantic Slavery, Kingship, and Worship of Nature: 3. Trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic Gajaaga; 4. Matriarchy, ecology, and Atlantic slave trade; Part III. Gajaaga at the centre, the French Empire at the Edge: 5. Resisting the French empire; 6. Bridging empire and hinterland; Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Traoré, Makhroufi Ousmane
Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré is Assistant Professor at Pomona College and an African scholar whose research primarily focuses on the history of the Trans-Saharan and Transatlantic slave trades. He was awarded the 2022 Andrew Mellon New Directions Fellowship. With this fellowship, Traoré endeavors to shine a light on the unheard voices of African Egyptologists with the publication of a textbook featuring African perspectives on Egyptology.