The Gift

Ana Lucia Araujo is a Professor of History at Howard University. A specialist on the history and memory of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, she has authored and edited thirteen books.

• Acknowledgments; Introduction: On Gifts and the Atlantic Slave Trade; 1. The Loango Coast and the Rise of the Atlantic Slave Trade; 2. La Rochelle and Atlantic Africa; 3. Slave Traders Turned Pirates; 4. Deciphering the Gift; 5. A Displaced Gift; 6. Ngoyo Meets Dahomey; Conclusion: Objects that Shaped the Slave Trade and Colonialism; Bibliography; Index.

'A remarkable counternarrative told through the history of material objects troubles what we know about commodification in West and West Central Africa. The Gift brilliantly reframes the best thinking on circulation at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In the expansive tapestry woven by Ana Lucia Araujo, readers will discern new ways of seeing and thinking about cultural objects and the elaboration of power in the Atlantic World. A rewarding and necessary book.' Herman Bennett, author of African Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic