Slavery and Slaving in African History (New Approaches to African History, Series Number 8)

Slavery that existed in Africa was timeless. Slaves were exported to the north across the Sahara, and east thru the ports on the Indian Ocean for over a thousand years before the Portuguese showed up looking for gold. African slavery is an enormous subject, with many facets covering different times and places. Sometimes slaves could have a life, have a family, and prosper. Other times it could be the worst form of exploitation imaginable. And there were the ones that were sold to ships sailing for Brazil, the Caribbean, America, Asia minor, India, and the far east. There must be more than a hundred million descendants of slaves living in the western hemisphere today. But what became of all those that were sent east? There aren't any populations of black people in Asia today, what is that story?

I have read dozens of books on slavery and the slave trades. This counts among the most objective. It is very well researched and covers many areas untouched by other writers who seem to ignore that slavery was present in Africa virtually forever. By the 19th century, after the Atlantic trade ended, it had become institutionalized. He also does a good job of presenting the different roles slaves had from slave wives and concubines, to plantation workers, tax collectors, and human sacrifice,, and the ways slaves were acquired, for example, slave raids, wars, and sold by family members.

Anyone who has read "A Fistful Of Shells" mostly does not need to read this book. The additional information was about East Africa and the fate of slavery after the European conquest of Africa. There is also anthropological information about the relation of slavery and kinship in state and less state environments. The writing is very, very dry.

This book is an accessible place to start for any reader who knows very little about the history of Africa, or the history of slavery in Africa. Stilwell provides a wide-ranging overview of the major debates among scholars of African slavery that students in my undergraduate African slavery course found useful. In particular, students found the opening chapter, "Defining Slavery, Defining Freedom," to be particularly helpful for challenging what they thought they knew about the meanings of slavery and freedom. Many people, including my students, started the book with a very narrow perception of what slavery meant. Typically, that was a perception rooted in a basic knowledge about how slavery worked in the American South. This book was an essential starting place for expanding those perceptions and giving them the background necessary to read additional books in the field.

Excellent history of the slave trade in Africa, told primarily through vignettes

Brand new for me.

Spent the holiday season reading away. Answered quite a few questions of mine on slavery. And changed the narrative and perspective on racial issues - white traders as well as African society built on slavery in some areas played a part in transatlantic slave trade. And the reason African societies did not move on to citizen society or wage worker economy on its own was probably because of the vastness of land and its harsh natural environment - kingdoms and tribes were not locked to land like elsewhere where land is limited with less harsh climates, to develop such a paradigm, it had geographical room to move and start again without the historical accumulation of philosophies... (All societies in the world probably started with slavery and similar coerced labor, but somehow internally or under external pressure move to the conclusion that all people should be happy as a result of accumulated historical thinking while in practice there is of course still the divide in the wealthy and the poor... is my guess) Looking forward to more works by the same author.

Evidenced writing of the source and history of slavery.

Too many books on slavery cover only the transatlantic and American part. This is only one part of a vastly bigger and longer story, even if one confines oneself to the enslavement of Africans. The devastating and complex history outlined in this book needs to be much more widely known. Recommended.