Forced migration : the impact of the export slave trade on African societies

There has been much debate over recent years about the effect of the Atlantic slave trade on Africa, with some authorities claiming that there were huge figures involved and that these set back Africa's development for many years. Other historians reach lower estimates of the figures involved in the Atlantic trade, and hence argue that the effects on the political economy of Africa were more limited. Had widespread slavery existed long before the growth of the European slave trade? How important was the trans-Saharan traffic ? Dr Inikori is the most authoritative voice in Africa to take part in this controversial international debate. He has done much original research into records, and here has made and introduced a selection of key papers. He has added elucidating editorial comments that place each paper in its context and link it to the other contributions. Students of the history of Africa, Europe and the Americas are presented with the evidence and the arguments in the heated and continuing debate on slavery. Dr J. E. Inikori gained his first degree and his Ph.D. at the University of Ibadan, and taught history at that university's campus in Jos. In 1973 he moved to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he is now Reader in history. Although he has contributed to many journals, this is Dr Inikori's first book. This collection of ten articles on the export slave trade from Africa serves as a vehicle for the editor's long and provocative introductory essay. The articles, originally published between I964 and I977, were selected to illustrate the editor's two major emphases: the relationship of the slave trade to Africa's nineteenth- century economic backwardness, and the importance of treating the whole of Black Africa as a region. The articles chosen are all sound contributions, and translation into English of the articles by Meillassoux and by Becker and Martin is particularly welcome. The key articles of Walter Rodney and John Fage are included in the volume, although the contents were chosen primarily to ensure balanced regional coverage rather than to reproduce the main contributions to current thinking. The central element of this volume, in contrast to most edited collections, is the introduction. Dr Inikori, always controversial in his analysis of slavery, has here set forth his most comprehensive statement on the draining demographic and economic effects of slavery in Africa: he spells out estimated magnitudes for these effects, and he draws attention to crucial assumptions on pre-slave-trade population size, and on sex ratios, mortality and fertility rates during the slave trade; he completes the argument by identifying the negative political and economic consequences of slave trade for African development. -- From https://www.jstor.org (Sep. 27, 2017) List of maps List of tables Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. "African Slavery and Other Forms of Social Oppression on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Context of the Atlantic Slave Trade" Walter Rodney 2. "The Role of Slavery in the Economic and Social History of Sahelo-Sudanic Africa" Claude Meillassoux 3. "Kayor and Baol: Senegalese Kingdoms and the Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century" Charles Becker and Victor Martin 4. "The Import of Firearms into West Africa, 1750 to 1807: A Quantitative Analysis" J.E. Inikori 5. "Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African History" J.D. Fage 6. "The Oyo Yoruba and the Atlantic Trade, 1670 to 1830" Peter Morton-Williams 7. "Effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Some West African Societies" Albert van Dantzig 8. "The Trade of Loango in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" Phyllis Martin 9. "The Portuguese Slave Trade from Angola in the Eighteenth Century" Herbert S. Klein 10. "The Impact of the Slave Trade on East Central Africa in the Nineteenth Century" Edward A. Alpers Notes and references Select bibliography Index Forced Migration , first published in 1982, examines the impact of the slave trade on Africa. There has been much debate over recent years about the effect of the Atlantic slave trade on Africa, with some authorities claiming that there were huge figures involved, and that these set back Africa's development for many years. Other historians reach lower estimates of the figures involved in the Atlantic trade, and hence argue that the effects on the political economy of Africa were more limited. Had widespread slavery existed long before the growth of the European slave trade? How important was the trans-Saharan traffic? Dr Inikori is the most authoritative voice in Africa to take part in this controversial international debate. He has done much original research into records, and here has made and introduced a selection of key papers. He has added elucidating editorial comments that place each paper in its context and link it to the other contributions.