Brokers of Change
Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in Pre-Colonial Western Africa
1st Edition
Published on 16. August 2012
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-19-726520-8 (ISBN)
Description
The Atlantic Ocean, transcending national boundaries as it does, has long been seen as a pivotal site for understanding the way in which local and regional economies and cultural frameworks gradually became integrated into a global system during the early modern era. A key concept that has brought new insight to the study of transnationalism is that of brokerage. Brokers are people who link up different worlds and are at ease in a variety of cultural settings; they have flexibility of outlook and cultural identification. Brokerage can explain and add nuance to the multiple cultural worlds and intense trade characteristics of regions of West Africa.
The essays collected here are by leading scholars in the field of the pre-colonial history of Western Africa (the region between Senegal and Sierra Leone). They span the whole pre-colonial period between the first Portuguese voyages of discovery and the transition to legitimate commerce. The volume offers the first real synthesis of the importance of this region of Africa in the emergence of the Atlantic world between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. It has sections on African-European relations; the Cape Verde islands and wider Atlantic trade; trade in slaves and commodities; and the transition to 'legitimate' commerce. Thus the essays here offer scholars and general readers a real chance to engage with an important part of Africa.
The essays collected here are by leading scholars in the field of the pre-colonial history of Western Africa (the region between Senegal and Sierra Leone). They span the whole pre-colonial period between the first Portuguese voyages of discovery and the transition to legitimate commerce. The volume offers the first real synthesis of the importance of this region of Africa in the emergence of the Atlantic world between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. It has sections on African-European relations; the Cape Verde islands and wider Atlantic trade; trade in slaves and commodities; and the transition to 'legitimate' commerce. Thus the essays here offer scholars and general readers a real chance to engage with an important part of Africa.
Reviews / Votes
Overall, the collection successfully engages with important themes concerning the creation and maintenance of intercontinental exchanges, and the development of Creole communities. It is possible to overdo concepts such as the Black Atlantic, suggesting a false unity through a perceived shared geography; this book wisely avoids that trap, by gathering particularistic, detailed studies with rich individual biographies, and giving them cohesion through the overarching theme of brokers. * Anne Haour, English Historical Review * Historians of coastal West African societies, of the slave trade, and of transnational interchange within the Atlantic commercial world will find solid evidence and interesting interpretations in these essays. It is clear that the contributors have read each other's work from the intelligent cross-referencing included ... well worth reading. * Kenneth Morgan, The Economic History Review * This is an important volume, bringing together junior and senior scholars who use new data to bring the debate on brokerage and its cultural and economic relevance into the pre-twentieth-century period...Scholars interested in African, Atlantic, and early modern history must read this significant volume. * Mariana Candido, Luso-Brazillian Review * Brokers of Change is a welcome addition to the under-represented field of pre-colonial Africa that presents Western Africa as a coherent space of insular and riverine connectivity. * Ghislaine Lydon, Early Modern History *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Scholars of African and Atlantic history; Postgraduate and undergraduate students on courses in African and Atlantic history
Illustrations
c. 12 maps, 3 figures
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 167 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
896 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-726520-8 (9780197265208)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Toby Green is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Departments of History and of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, King's College London and an Honorary Fellow of the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham. He is a director of the Amilcar Cabral Institute for Economic and Political Research, a think-tank dedicated to Guinea-Bissau.
Content
1: African-European Relations
1: Gerhard Seibert: Creolization and Creole communities in the Portuguese Atlantic: Sao Tome, Cape Verde and the Rivers of Guinea in comparison
2: Natalie Everts: A Motley Company: Differing Identities Among Euro-Africans in Eighteenth-Century Elmina
2: The Atlantic Dimension
3: Heather Dalton: 'Into speyne to selle for slavys': English, Spanish and Genoese merchant networks and their involvement with the 'cost of gwynea' trade prior to 1550
4: Filipa Ribeiro da Silva: Trading with Western Africa: 'Dutch' and Sephardim Insurance, Business and Agency (c. 1590-1674)
5: Ibrahima Seck: The French in Senegal: Trials and Tribulations of a Laboratory for << Francite >> in the French Atlantic World (17th-19th Centuries)
3: The Insular Atlantic
6: Chris Evans; Marie-Louise Sorensen; Konstantin Richter: The Earliest Christian Church in the Tropics: Excavation of the N.? S.? da Conceicao, Cidade Velha, Cape Verde
7: Bart Jacobs: On the Dutch Presence in 17th-century Senegambia and the Emergence of Papiamentu
8: Toby Green: The Emergence of a Mixed Cultural Framework in Cape Verde in the 17th-Century
4: Trade in Slaves and Commodities
9: Antonio de Almeida Mendes: Slavery, Society and the First Steps Towards an Atlantic Revolution in Senegambia Western Africa (XV-XVI Centuries)
10: Linda A. Newson: Bartering for Slaves on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Early Seventeenth Century
11: Michael Tuck: "Everyday Commodities, the Rivers of Guinea, and the Atlantic World: The Beeswax Export Trade, c.1450-c.1800"
5: "Post-Slavery"
12: George E. Brooks: American Trade with Cabo Verde and Guine, 1820s-1850s: Exploiting the Transition from Slave to legitimate Commerce
13: Philip J. Havik: "A Commanding Commercial Position": the African settlement of Bolama island and Anglo-Portuguese rivalry (1830-1870)
14: Marika Sherwood: 'Legitimate' traders, the building of empires and the long-term after-affects in Africa
15: Jose Lingna Nafafe: Challenges of the Atlantic voices: A call for recognition, slavery and post slavery in West Africa
1: Gerhard Seibert: Creolization and Creole communities in the Portuguese Atlantic: Sao Tome, Cape Verde and the Rivers of Guinea in comparison
2: Natalie Everts: A Motley Company: Differing Identities Among Euro-Africans in Eighteenth-Century Elmina
2: The Atlantic Dimension
3: Heather Dalton: 'Into speyne to selle for slavys': English, Spanish and Genoese merchant networks and their involvement with the 'cost of gwynea' trade prior to 1550
4: Filipa Ribeiro da Silva: Trading with Western Africa: 'Dutch' and Sephardim Insurance, Business and Agency (c. 1590-1674)
5: Ibrahima Seck: The French in Senegal: Trials and Tribulations of a Laboratory for << Francite >> in the French Atlantic World (17th-19th Centuries)
3: The Insular Atlantic
6: Chris Evans; Marie-Louise Sorensen; Konstantin Richter: The Earliest Christian Church in the Tropics: Excavation of the N.? S.? da Conceicao, Cidade Velha, Cape Verde
7: Bart Jacobs: On the Dutch Presence in 17th-century Senegambia and the Emergence of Papiamentu
8: Toby Green: The Emergence of a Mixed Cultural Framework in Cape Verde in the 17th-Century
4: Trade in Slaves and Commodities
9: Antonio de Almeida Mendes: Slavery, Society and the First Steps Towards an Atlantic Revolution in Senegambia Western Africa (XV-XVI Centuries)
10: Linda A. Newson: Bartering for Slaves on the Upper Guinea Coast in the Early Seventeenth Century
11: Michael Tuck: "Everyday Commodities, the Rivers of Guinea, and the Atlantic World: The Beeswax Export Trade, c.1450-c.1800"
5: "Post-Slavery"
12: George E. Brooks: American Trade with Cabo Verde and Guine, 1820s-1850s: Exploiting the Transition from Slave to legitimate Commerce
13: Philip J. Havik: "A Commanding Commercial Position": the African settlement of Bolama island and Anglo-Portuguese rivalry (1830-1870)
14: Marika Sherwood: 'Legitimate' traders, the building of empires and the long-term after-affects in Africa
15: Jose Lingna Nafafe: Challenges of the Atlantic voices: A call for recognition, slavery and post slavery in West Africa