Transformations in Slavery
A History of Slavery in Africa

A history of African slavery from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Paul E. Lovejoy (Author)

9780521176187, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 October 2011

412 pages, 6 maps 27 tables
22.8 x 16.1 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

'As with all good history, Transformations in Slavery makes us see the present in the new light it casts on the past. This clear narrative is charged with philosophical sophistication and enlivened by well-placed anecdote.' Tony Voss, African Studies Quarterly

This history of African slavery from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries examines how indigenous African slavery developed within an international context. Paul E. Lovejoy discusses the medieval Islamic slave trade and the Atlantic trade as well as the enslavement process and the marketing of slaves. He considers the impact of European abolition and assesses slavery's role in African history. The book corrects the accepted interpretation that African slavery was mild and resulted in the slaves' assimilation. Instead, slaves were used extensively in production, although the exploitation methods and the relationships to world markets differed from those in the Americas. Nevertheless, slavery in Africa, like slavery in the Americas, developed from its position on the periphery of capitalist Europe. This new edition revises all statistical material on the slave trade demography and incorporates recent research and an updated bibliography.

1. Africa and slavery
2. On the frontiers of Islam, 1400–1600
3. The export trade in slaves, 1600–1800
4. The enslavement of Africans, 1600–1800
5. The organization of slave marketing, 1600–1800
6. Relationships of dependency, 1600–1800
7. The nineteenth-century slave trade
8. Slavery and 'legitimate trade' on the west African coast
9. Slavery in the savanna during the era of the Jihads
10. Slavery in central, southern, and eastern Africa in the nineteenth century
11. The abolitionist impulse
12. Slavery in the political economy of Africa.

Subject Areas: Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], African history [HBJH]