Where the Negroes Are Masters : An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade

Annamaboe was the largest slave trading port on the eighteenth-century Gold Coast, and it was home to successful, wily African merchants whose unusual partnerships with their European counterparts made the town and its people an integral part of the Atlantic's webs of exchange. Where the Negroes Are Masters brings to life the outpost's feverish commercial bustle and continual brutality, recovering the experiences of the entrepreneurial black and white men who thrived on the lucrative traffic in human beings. Located in present-day Ghana, the port of Annamaboe brought the town's Fante merchants into daily contact with diverse peoples: Englishmen of the Royal African Company, Rhode Island Rum Men, European slave traders, and captured Africans from neighboring nations. Operating on their own turf, Annamaboe's African leaders could bend negotiations with Europeans to their own advantage, as they funneled imported goods from across the Atlantic deep into the African interior and shipped vast cargoes of enslaved Africans to labor in the Americas. Far from mere pawns in the hands of the colonial powers, African men and women were major players in the complex networks of the slave trade. Randy Sparks captures their collective experience in vivid detail, uncovering how the slave trade arose, how it functioned from day to day, and how it transformed life in Annamaboe and made the port itself a hub of Atlantic commerce. From the personal, commercial, and cultural encounters that unfolded along Annamaboe's shore emerges a dynamic new vision of the early modern Atlantic world. Annamaboe was the largest slave trading port on the eighteenth-century Gold Coast, and it was home to successful, wily African merchants whose unusual partnerships with their European counterparts made the town and its people an integral part of the Atlantic's webs of exchange. __Where the Negroes Are Masters__ brings to life the outpost's feverish commercial bustle and continual brutality, recovering the experiences of the entrepreneurial black and white men who thrived on the lucrative traffic in human beings. Far from mere pawns in the hands of the colonial powers, African men and women were major players in the complex networks of the slave trade. Randy Sparks captures their collective experience in vivid detail, uncovering how the slave trade arose, how it functioned from day to day, and how it transformed life in Annamaboe and made the port itself a hub of Atlantic commerce. From the personal, commercial, and cultural encounters that unfolded along Annamaboe's shore emerges a dynamic new vision of the early modern Atlantic world. Contents 8 Introduction 14 1. Annamaboe Joins the Atlantic World 20 2. John Corrantee and Slave-Trade Diplomacy at Annamaboe 48 3. Richard Brew and the World of an African-Atlantic Merchant 81 4. The Process of Enslavement at Annamaboe 135 5. Tracing the Trade: Annamaboe and the Rum Men 176 6. A World in Motion: Annamaboe in the Atlantic Community 199 7. Things Fall Apart: The End of the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World 224 Conclusion 253 Important Terms, Names, and Places 260 Notes 274 Acknowledgments 312 Index 314 Annamaboe joins the Atlantic world John Corrantee and slave trade diplomacy at Annamaboe Richard Brew and the world of an African-Atlantic merchant The process of enslavement at Annamaboe Tracing the trade: Annamaboe and the rum men A world in motion: Annamaboe in the Atlantic community Things fall apart: the end of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Annamaboe--largest slave trading port on the Gold Coast--was home to wily African merchants whose partnerships with Europeans made the town an integral part of Atlantic webs of exchange. Randy Sparks recreates the outpost's feverish bustle and brutality, tracing the entrepreneurs, black and white, who thrived on a lucrative traffic in human beings.