Slavery and African Life
Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades

This book summarizes a wide range of recent literature on slavery for all of tropical Africa.

Patrick Manning (Author)

9780521348676, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 September 1990

252 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.42 kg

"Manning provides his readers wth a well-written, broad-ranging, and interdisciplinary introduction to a very important subject. In additon to summarizing recent work in this field, he is provocative, insightful, and refreshingly sensitive to the complexties and nuances of this topic....These qualities will make this book a good introduction to African slavery for both undergraduate students and the non-specialist scholar." Richard B. Allen, African Studies Review

This interpretation of the impact of slavery on African life emphasizes the importance of external demand for slaves - from Occidental and Oriental purchasers - in developing an active trade in slaves within Africa. The book summarizes a wide range of recent literature on slavery for all of tropical Africa. It analyzes the demography, economics, social structure, and ideology of slavery in Africa from the beginning of large-scale exports in the seventeenth century to the gradual elimination of slavery in the twentieth century. While the book is primarily a general survey, it presents interesting research and analysis, especially in the author's demographic model, computer simulation of the slave trade, and analysis of slave prices. The demographic, economic, and social analyses are carefully introduced, so that the book may serve not only as a general introduction to African slavery for an undergraduate audience, but as a primer on interdisciplinary application of social science methodology.

List of plates
List of figures
List of maps
Acknowledgements
Prologue: tragedy and sacrifice in the history of slavery
1. The political economy of slavery in Africa
2. Why Africans? The rise of the slave trade to 1700
3. Slavery and the African population: a demographic model
4. The quantitative impact of the slave trade, 1700–1900
5. The economics and morality of slave supply
6. Patterns of slave life
7. Transformations of slavery and society, 1650–1900
8. The end of slavery
9. The world and Africa
Appendix 1: slave prices
Appendix 2: the demographic simulation
Notes
bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH]