In the Shadow of Slavery : Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World

The transatlantic slave trade forced millions of Africans into bondage. Until the early nineteenth century, African slaves came to the Americas in greater numbers than Europeans. In the Shadow of Slavery provides a startling new assessment of the Atlantic slave trade and upends conventional wisdom by shifting attention from the crops slaves were forced to produce to the foods they planted for their own nourishment. Many familiar foods--millet, sorghum, coffee, okra, watermelon, and the "Asian" long bean, for example--are native to Africa, while commercial products such as Coca Cola, Worcestershire Sauce, and Palmolive Soap rely on African plants that were brought to the Americas on slave ships as provisions, medicines, cordage, and bedding. In this exciting, original, and groundbreaking book, Judith A. Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff draw on archaeological records, oral histories, and the accounts of slave ship captains to show how slaves' food plots--"botanical gardens of the dispossessed"--became the incubators of African survival in the Americas and Africanized the foodways of plantation societies. Food And The African Past -- African Plants On The Move -- African Food Crops And The Guinea Trade -- African Food And The Atlantic Crossing -- Maroon Subsistence Strategies -- The Africanization Of Plantation Food Systems -- Botanical Gardens Of The Dispossessed -- Guinea's Plants And European Empire -- African Animals And Grasses In The New World Tropics -- Memory Dishes Of The African Diaspora. Judith A. Carney And Richard Nicholas Rosomoff. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 239-260) And Index. Food and the African past African plants on the move African food crops and the Guinea trade African food and the Atlantic crossing Maroon subsistence strategies The Africanization of plantation food systems Botanical gardens of the dispossessed Guinea's plants and European empire African animals and grasses in the New World tropics Memory dishes of Africa's botanical legacy. 'In the Shadow of Slavery' explores the wealth of plant life brought to the Americas by slaves and slave ships as provisions, medicines, cordage and bedding, and afterwards cultivated in garden plots. These included coffee, watermelon and okra, as well as the constituents of many well-known products xiv, 280 p., [7] p. of plates : 24 cm