An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland

by Mariana Candido

Overview

This book traces the history and development of the port of Benguela, the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa, from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Benguela, located on the central coast of present-day Angola, was founded by the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century. In discussing the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African societies, Mariana P. Candido explores the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states and the emergence of new states. Placing Benguela in an Atlantic perspective, this study shows how events in the Caribbean and Brazil affected social and political changes on the African coast. This book emphasizes the importance of the South Atlantic as a space for the circulation of people, ideas and crops.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107326729
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/29/2013
Series:	African Studies , #124
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Mariana P. Candido is Assistant Professor at Princeton University. She is the author of Fronteras de Esclavización: Esclavitud, Comercio e Identidad en Benguela, 1780–1850 (2011) and co-edited Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora (2011) with Ana Lucia Araujo and Paul E. Lovejoy. Her articles have appeared in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Slavery and Abolition, African Economic History, the Portuguese Studies Review, Cahiers des Anneux de la Mémoire and Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Contacts, competition, and copper: Benguela until 1710; 2. The rise of an Atlantic port; 3. Benguela and the South Atlantic World; 4. Mechanisms of enslavement; 5. Political reconfiguration of the Benguela hinterland, 1600–1850; 6. Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

"… provides valuable information about transatlantic trading networks and about the ethnic identity of enslaved Africans sent to Brazil."
International Journal of Maritime History

From the Publisher