Transatlantic Slavery

David Fleming is Director of National Museums Liverpool. Dr Richard Benjamin is Head of the International Slavery Museum, part of the National Museums Liverpool.

• ContentsForeword – Reverend Jesse JacksonWhat is slavery?A history of transatlantic slaveryAfrican pastsWhy Africans?Why slavery?Operation of the slave tradeLiverpool: Capital of the transatlantic slave tradeReasons for Liverpool’s successEconomic benefits of slaveryTropical goods and the rise of the consumer societyEnslavement and the Middle PassageThe Middle Passage: voyage through deathImpact on AfricaLife and death in the AmericasSale and ‘seasoning’Chattel slaveryPlantation lifePioneers of the AmericasResistanceMaroonsPro-slavery argumentsThe end of slaveryAbolition of the British slave tradeFreedom in the AmericasThe legacy of slaveryRacismThe fight for civil rightsGlobal inequalitiesSince colonisationReparationsCultural transformations‘The sun never sets on the children of Africa’An unquenchable spiritThe International Slavery MusuemFurther ReadingMuseums and websites to visitAcknowledgements

The essays consistently challenge the lay reader to reconsider received wisdom about slavery and its consequences, and cause the specialist to rethink approaches to primary sources, the categories we use, and the meaning of our research… a good introduction to the questions and themes that drive scholarship about the waxing and waning of the international enslavement of Africans.Anna S. Agbe-Davies, Department of Anthropology, DePaul University