Module description
This module provides students with an overview of the trans-Atlantic slave trade as it affected societies in West Africa and the New World, from the 16th century to the early 19th century. The course is taught thematically, so that major themes are interrelated in both social and political history on both sides of the Atlantic. In Africa we look especially at Angola, Dahomey, the Gold Coast, Kongo and Senegambia while in the New World there is a focus on Barbados, Brazil, Haiti, and Jamaica. Finally, we also consider the impact of this history in Europe through discussions of the rise of consumer societies and the relationship between this and the Abolition movement. By the end of the module, students will have enhanced their critical understanding of this major historical event and will have developed detailed knowledge of specific case studies which sharpen this knowledge.
Further information on 5AAH1014: https://keats.kcl.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=3195511&chapterid=261284
Assessment details
1 x 1,500-word formative essay; 1 x 3,000-word essay (100%)
Teaching pattern
10 x 2-hour seminars (weekly)
Suggested reading list
Suggested introductory reading
This is suggested reading and purchase of these books is not mandatory.
- Alice Bellagamba, Sandra E. Greene and Martin A. Klein, eds., African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade: Volume 1, The Sources (2013). Key text for African perspectives on the history of slavery.
- Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Creole (1996). Major general overview on the institution of slavery in the New World.
- David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (2006). More recent history of slavery in the New World by key figure in the field.
- Gad Heuman and James Walvin (eds), The Slavery Reader (2003). Good collection of general essays.
- Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: a history of slavery in Africa (2012; 4th edition). The major work on the impact of Atlantic slavery on slavery in Africa.
- Claude Meillassoux, The Anthropology of Slavery (1991). The best ethnographic analysis of the institution of slavery in Africa.
- John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World (1998). Major work that brought the role of Africans in Atlantic history into a wider public.