About this book:

"Chains Across the Atlantic: African Societies and the Transatlantic Slave Trade" offers a comprehensive examination of the transatlantic slave trade, focusing on the intricate and dynamic involvement of African societies. The book challenges the simplistic view of Africa as merely a source of labor, instead highlighting African actors, institutions, and adaptations within the complex web of mercantile capitalism. It meticulously details the origins of the trade from the late fifteenth to the late nineteenth century, tracing how European demand for labor intertwined with existing African political orders, social structures, and commercial networks, particularly through coastal brokerage systems.

The book employs a dual methodology, combining quantitative shipping records to map demographic flows, mortality rates, and regional patterns with qualitative African oral histories, genealogies, and place-based memories. This approach allows for a structural and intimate understanding of the trade, revealing the mechanics of capture, exchange, and transport, while also illuminating how communities processed loss, resisted, and reconstituted their social worlds. Chapters delve into the pre-Atlantic African polities, the evolution of slave routes, the financial architecture of European demand, and the specific currencies and pathways (war, law, kidnapping) into slavery within Africa and for export.

A significant portion of the book is dedicated to regional analyses, detailing the unique experiences and adaptations of areas such as Senegambia, the Gold Coast (Asante), the Bight of Benin (Dahomey, Oyo), the Bight of Biafra (Aro, Igbo, Ibibio), West Central Africa (Kongo, Ndongo), and Mozambique. These chapters emphasize the diversity of African responses, from strategic participation to various forms of resistance, all shaped by local political economies, ecological factors, gender dynamics, and religious networks. The book also examines the brutal realities of the Middle Passage, including logistics, mortality, and shipboard resistance, alongside the enduring demographic transformations on the continent.

Finally, "Chains Across the Atlantic" extends its analysis beyond the formal abolition of the trade, exploring the subsequent reordering of power, the rise of "legitimate commerce" (like palm oil), and the persistence and transformation of labor regimes within Africa. It concludes by addressing the profound cultural motion across the Atlantic—in religion, music, and aesthetics—and delves into contemporary issues of memory, memorialization, and the politics of reparative justice. The overarching message is that the transatlantic slave trade was a dynamic, interconnected system that profoundly reshaped both African societies and the Atlantic world, leaving complex legacies that continue to inform present-day identities and debates.