African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade: Volume 2, Essays on Sources and Methods

Explores how to use different types of sources to write the history of slavery and the slave trade in Africa.

Alice Bellagamba (Edited by), Sandra E. Greene (Edited by), Martin A. Klein (Edited by)

9780521145299, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 May 2020

216 pages, 3 b/w illus.
18 x 25 x 1 cm, 0.43 kg

'… makes significant contribution to historiography in the field. … It is an important work that challenges researchers to reflect deeply on the validity and reliability of sources, particularly the dangers of over-reliance on archives that were created by those in authority or those who held a great deal of power in the past. The book brings fresh insight and make bold claims particularly about epistemological issues, and emphasizes clearly that the facts we gather at the archives are not necessarily the entire truth about the social, cultural, political, economic and historical issues they aspire to articulate. I recommend this book to everyone interested in the history of slavery. Graduate students and new researchers in the field of slavery in Africa and the diaspora will benefit enormously from the questions, issues, and guidelines covered in this book to unearth the voices of slaves and their communities.' Kwame Essien, African Studies Quarterly

What were the experiences of those in Africa who suffered from the practice of slavery, those who found themselves captured and sold from person to person, those who died on the trails, those who were forced to live in fear? And what of those Africans who profited from the slave trade and slavery? What were their perspectives? How do we access any of these experiences and views? This volume explores diverse sources such as oral testimonies, possession rituals, Arabic language sources, European missionary, administrative and court records and African intellectual writings to discover what they can tell us about slavery and the slave trade in Africa. Also discussed are the methodologies that can be used to uncover the often hidden experiences of Africans embedded in these sources. This book will be invaluable for students and researchers interested in the history of slavery, the slave trade and post-slavery in Africa.

Introduction: sources and methods - writing about African slavery and the slave trade Alice Bellagamba, Sandra E. Greene and Martin A. Klein
1. Excavating Arabic sources for the history of slavery and slave trade in Western Africa Ghislaine Lydon and Bruce Hall
2. Christian missionaries on record: documenting slavery and the slave trade from the late fifteenth to the early twentieth century Sandra E. Greene
3. Early-modern European-language sources on African slavery: the historian at work Pierluigi Valsecchi
4. African intellectual ideas in the age of legal slavery and the slave trade Sandra E. Greene and Oluwatoyin Oduntan
5. Looking for slavery in colonial archives: French West Africa Martin A. Klein
6. Slave voices in African colonial courts: sources and methods Kristin Mann and Richard Roberts
7. Understanding African slavery past through spirit possession Alessandra Brivio
8. Yesterday and today: oral representations of the past and the legacy of African slavery Alice Bellagamba.

Subject Areas: Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], Oral history [HBTD], African history [HBJH], General & world history [HBG]