Liz Clarke

Trevor R. Getz

Abina and the Important Men is a compelling and powerfully illustrated "graphic history" based on an 1876 court transcript of a West African woman named Abina, who was wrongfully enslaved and took her case to court. The book is a microhistory that does much more than simply depict an event in the past; it uses the power of illustration to convey important themes in world history and to reveal the processes by which history is made.

A Graphic History

Abina and the Important Men

Rebecca Shumway

Ghana-for all its notable strides toward more egalitarian political and social systems in the past 60 years-remains a nation plagued with inequalities stemming from its long history of slavery and slave trading. The work assembled in this collection explores the history of slavery in Ghana and its legacy for both Ghana and the descendants of people sold as slaves from the “Gold Coast” in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. The volume is structured to reflect four overlapping areas of investigation: the changing nature of slavery in Ghana, including the ways in which enslaved people have been integrated into or excluded from kinship systems, social institutions, politics, and the workforce over time; the long-standing connections forged between Ghana and the Americas and Europe through the transatlantic trading system and the forced migration of enslaved people; the development of indigenous and transnational anti-slavery ideologies; and the legacy of slavery and its ongoing reverberations in Ghanaian and diasporic society. Bringing together key scholars from Ghana, Europe and the USA who introduce new sources, frames and methodologies including heritage, gender, critical race, and culture studies, and drawing on archival documents and oral histories, Slavery and Its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora will be of great interest to scholars and students of comparative slavery, abolition and West African history.

Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora

A series of transformations, reforms, and attempted abolitions of slavery form a core narrative of nineteenth-century coastal West Africa. As the region's role in Atlantic commercial networks underwent a gradual transition from principally that of slave exporter to producer of “legitimate goods” and dependent markets, institutions of slavery became battlegrounds in which European abolitionism, pragmatic colonialism, and indigenous agency clashed. In Slavery and Reform in West Africa, Trevor Getz demonstrates that it was largely on the anvil of this issue that French and British policy in West Africa was forged. With distant metropoles unable to intervene in daily affairs, local European administrators, striving to balance abolitionist pressures against the resistance of politically and economically powerful local slave owners, sought ways to satisfy the latter while placating or duping the former. The result was an alliance between colonial officials, company agents, and slave-owning elites that effectively slowed, sidetracked, or undermined serious attempts to reform slave holding. Although slavery was outlawed in both regions, in only a few isolated instances did large-scale emancipations occur. Under the surface, however, slaves used the threat of self-liberation to reach accommodations that transformed the master-slave relationship. By comparing the strategies of colonial administrators, slave-owners, and slaves across these two regions and throughout the nineteenth century, Slavery and Reform in West Africa reveals not only the causes of the astounding success of slave owners, but also the factors that could, and in some cases did, lead to slave liberations. These findings have serious implications for the wider study of slavery and emancipation and for the history of Africa generally.

Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Senegal and the Gold Coast

Slavery and Reform in West Africa

Heather Streets-Salter

For courses in Imperialism/Colonialism as well as the second half of the World History survey course, this textbook addresses modern imperialism and colonialism from a truly global and holistic perspective. From the formation of centralized gunpowder empires in Eurasia and parts of Africa to the demise of the bi-polar Cold War world, Modern Imperialism and Colonialism investigates our evolving understanding of the origins, nature, mechanisms, and demise of modern empires. It evaluates empires as structures and also explores the doctrines, ideologies, and practices of imperialism and colonial rule.

A Global Perspective

Modern Imperialism and Colonialism

African Voices of the Global Past

Global historical events are too often recounted exclusively through European and American voices. African Voices of the Global Past explores six major historical developments of global significance - the Atlantic slave trade, industrialization, colonialism, the World Wars, decolonization, and the development of modern feminism - from an African perspective. Voices emerge throughout the text in the form of primary sources that explore the personal accounts of individuals. These enable students to look beyond the indistinct figures of Africans in European and American accounts to see the people directly involved and affected by the major global changes they experienced. Featuring contributed chapters from renowned scholars, many from the continent of Africa or the African diaspora, African Voices of the Global Past offers a unique view of global history from a traditionally overlooked perspective. This book is a perfect supplement for world history and African history instructors seeking to relate a compelling narrative of major world events.

Trevor R. Getz

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