Converging on Cannibals: Terrors of Slaving in Atlantic Africa, 1509–1670 (Africa in World History)

In Converging on Cannibals, Jared Staller demonstrates that one of the most terrifying discourses used during the era of transatlantic slaving--cannibalism--was coproduced by Europeans and Africans. When these people from vastly different cultures first came into contact, they shared a fear of potential cannibals. Some Africans and European slavers allowed these rumors of themselves as man-eaters to stand unchallenged. Using the visual and verbal idioms of cannibalism, people like the Imbangala of Angola rose to power in a brutal world by embodying terror itself. Beginning in the Kongo in the 1500s, Staller weaves a nuanced narrative of people who chose to live and behave as "jaga," alleged cannibals and terrorists who lived by raiding and enslaving others, culminating in the violent political machinations of Queen Njinga as she took on the mantle of "Jaga" to establish her power. Ultimately, Staller tells the story of Africans who confronted worlds unknown as cannibals, how they used the concept to order the world around them, and how they were themselves brought to order by a world of commercial slaving that was equally cannibalistic in the human lives it consumed. -- Provided by publisher CONTENTS 8 ILLUSTRATIONS 10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 12 1: An Introduction to Cannibal Talk 16 2: Angels of Deliverance, 1483–ca. 1543 31 3: Phantoms of the Kongo, 1568–1591 60 4: Destroyers of Angola, 1600–1625 87 Gallery of images 118 5: Queen of Cruelty, 1629–1655 126 6: Preachers and Publicists, 1500–ca. 1670 158 7: The Afterlife of the Jaga 191 Appendix A: Research Methods 198 Appendix B: Suggested Further Readings by Chapter and Topic 207 Appendix C: Primary Source Excerpts 217 Notes 234 Bibliography 262 Index 274