ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE REVISITED, THE

THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE REVISITED

Diene, Doudou (ed.) From Chains to Bonds: The Slave Trade Revisited. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books; Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2001. 470 pp.

Northrup, David (ed.), The Atlantic Slave Trade. 2nd edition. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. 203 pp.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade, which lasted over three hundred and fifty years and inextricably linked four continents, constituted history's largest forced migration and one of the seminal events in global history. Over twelve million Africans, mostly from coastal West and Central Africa and transported primarily on European ships, were landed in the Americas, primarily Brazil and the West Indies. Whereas less than five percent of the total number came to the British North American colonies, including what would become the southern United States, and despite having been abolished over one hundred and fifty years ago, the issues of the slave trade, slavery and racism dominate much of the current discourse in the United States. The Atlantic slave trade played a fundamental role in the creation of American societies and exercised a crucial and central role in the modern histories of Africa, the Americas, and Europe. This crucial and emotional topic thus interests not only global historians but also African, American and European historians, and commentators and activists concerned with the contemporary Third World. Some observers directly attribute many of sub-Saharan Africa's problems today to the continent's active participation in the slave trade. The trade's economic, cultural and social impacts on the Americas are still evident, if often minimized, obscured, or ignored. Others have examined the correlation between Europe's, and especially Britain's, involvement in the trade and the rise of the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A heated and emotional debate over reparations, both for peoples of African descent in the Americas as well as the areas that supplied slaves to the trade, occurs periodically in the United Nations and elsewhere. Previously unknown data bases and records emerge constantly, permitting new interpretations and calculations. Additions to the literature are always welcome, and these two volumes make substantial contributions to the historiography of the Atlantic slave trade while simultaneously opening up new avenues for future research and interpretation. One of their common strengths is that both books deal with a range of aspects of the trade, and not just one issue or period. Following a roughly chronological framework, they also cover an array of perspectives and interpretations.

Slavery and slave trades have existed for much of recorded history. Virtually every agricultural society in the pre-modern world had a legal and codified system of slavery or servitude. Rather than being a "peculiar institution," slavery was a common practice throughout most of the globe and throughout history. Slaves often accounted for half or more of the population in any given society, state, kingdom, or empire. Male and female slaves were used, to cite only a few occupations, as farmers, servants, porters, miners, monument builders, entertainers, soldiers, sailors, guards, advisers and courtesans. Many slaves held positions of considerable authority, power and influence. In addition to slavery, slave trades existed in many parts of the world. Masters desired slaves from other regions, without nearby family ties, to insure loyalty and to prevent escape. States often exchanged prisoners of war to have foreign-born slaves. Local, regional and long-distance, overland and overseas slave trading has been documented in many pre-modern societies. For example, the trans-Saharan slave trade, involving slaves from sub-Saharan Africa exported to the Islamic world, India and beyond, consisted of a well-developed system of exchange, well before the arrival of Europeans off the coasts of West and Central Africa in the late 140Os. When the transAtlantic slave trade began, Africans were well-acquainted with slavery and slave trading. Europeans tapped into an existing network of trading people for commodities. What is unique about the Atlantic slave trade in global history is its scale, length, and impacts.

The volume, From Chains to Bonds: The Slave Trade Revisited, contains papers presented at a 1994 conference held in Ouidah, Benin, West Africa, which launched UNESCO's international Slave Route project. This ambitious multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary undertaking created a framework to understand the underlying causes, mechanisms and impacts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade from West and Central Africa to the Americas. Numerous initiatives, including memorials, museum exhibitions, conferences, and this current book, were proposed by several different member states and organizations. The goal was to retrieve the slave trade from historical neglect and the loss of memory, and restore it to its rightful place at the forefront of modern history and contemporary issues. This volume, although appearing seven years after the initial meeting which renders some of the pieces hopelessly out-of-date, represents one of the first and most visible, tangible results of the Slave Route project. It also successfully draws attention to the critical importance of the trade in global history, economics, politics, and society. Forty authors from eighteen countries on four continents contributed to this diverse and complex work. Chapters range from one to forty pages, and include scholarly essays, poems, and personal reflections. Many of the articles are useful as they sum work done by the authors over the preceding years. Because of the study's length and the predictable varying quality of the chapters in such a large collection, a careful selection of entries will be considered in this review essay.