Books by Rebecca Shumway
The history of Ghana attracts popular interest out of proportion to its small size and marginal i... more The history of Ghana attracts popular interest out of proportion to its small size and marginal importance to the global economy. Ghana is the land of Kwame Nkrumah and the Pan-Africanist movement of the 1960s; it has been a temporary home to famous African Americans like W. E. B. DuBois and Maya Angelou; and its Asante Kingdom and signature kente cloth-global symbols of African culture and pride-are well known. Ghana also attracts a continuous flow of international tourists because of two historical sites that are among the most notorious monuments of the transatlantic slave trade: Cape Coast and Elmina Castles. These looming structures are a vivid reminder of the horrific trade that gave birth to the black population of the Americas.
The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade explores the fascinating history of the transatlantic slave trade on Ghana's coast between 1700 and 1807. Here author Rebecca Shumway brings to life the survival experiences of southern Ghanaians as they became both victims of continuous violence and successful brokers of enslaved human beings. The era of the slave trade gave birth to a new culture in this part of West Africa, just as it was giving birth to new cultures across the Americas. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade pushes Asante scholarship to the forefront of African diaspora and Atlantic World studies by showing the integral role of Fante middlemen and transatlantic trade in the development of the Asante economy prior to 1807.
Ghana-for all its notable strides toward more egalitarian political and social systems in the pas... more 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.
Empire by Treaty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, 161-185
Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a Revolutionary Age, 2018
Papers by Rebecca Shumway
Enterprise & Society, 2016
Toby Green’s research on European and African interactions in precolonial Western Africa (Cabo Ve... more Toby Green’s research on European and African interactions in precolonial Western Africa (Cabo Verde and Upper Guinea, in particular) is among the fi rst investigations of the African origins of the transAtlantic system, providing a clear example of how culture and enterprise inform and shape each other over time. Green shows how the Atlantic network of trade was facilitated and shaped by preexisting frameworks of cultural and economic exchange, in this case between the Diaspora populations of Iberian Jewish converts to Catholicism ( conversos ) and Western Africans living in the midst of the Mandinka expansion. The similarities between these two groups of peoples provided them with many of the same frames of reference and allowed merchants of both groups to fi nd suffi cient common ground to develop lasting trust-based commercial relationships. These relationships had enduring economic, social, cultural, environmental, and religious effects, which lend themselves to myriad areas of inquiry. Green uses a variety of sources from Europe, Africa, and Latin America, the vast majority of them in the original Portuguese and Spanish. He consistently interrogates their reliability through comparison with translated early Arabic sources and oral history of Western Africa for the widest possible mix of perspectives, even when this does not bolster his thesis. This renders his methodology transparent, as readers are provided with explanations for interpretive choices and alerted to silences in the documents and the limits of these texts. When possible, Green places Africans and their words at the center of the research. For example, when comparing the slaving past of the cosmopolitan and outward-looking kingdom of Mali, he analyzes contemporary Islamic chroniclers like Ibn Taghr ī Bird ī and Al-Maqr ī z ī from the Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (J.F.P. Hopkins and Nehemia Levtzion, 1981) instead of the European records that confi rm this information (p. 74). Franck Cochoy University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès / CERTOP-CNRS Email: [email protected]
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London, Dec 1, 2021
84 Similarly, an important new body of scholarship explores the ownership of slaves by universiti... more 84 Similarly, an important new body of scholarship explores the ownership of slaves by universities in the United States and Europe.
Slavery & Abolition, Jul 3, 2019
The Journal of African History, Nov 1, 2013
and not Kua as a whole; furthermore, paragraph · states that ‘this judgment does not finally ... more and not Kua as a whole; furthermore, paragraph · states that ‘this judgment does not finally resolve the dispute between the parties but merely refers them back to the negotiating table’. Despite Tomaselli’s approval of intervention by Survival International, the High Court opined that this had damaged Kua credibility, while a Kua author, Kuela Kiema, reports that SI’s involvement led to the collapse of the legal team, leaving the Kua without qualified representation in court. The case is in fact a cautionary tale about the limits of autoethnography when peoples’ lives and livelihoods take precedence over the enactment of self. The book is poorly edited with many incorrect or omitted citations and references. There are also many misspellings (Berdenkamp rather than Bredekamp, p. ) and errors, among the more egregious of which is attributing the Herero place name, Otjozondjupa, to Jhu|‘hoansi (p. ).
Journal of the Early Republic, 2022
Journal of Early Modern History, Oct 11, 2021
The American Historical Review, Oct 1, 2019
International Journal of African Historical Studies, May 1, 2013
Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: The Journals and Correspondence of Vice... more Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: The Journals and Correspondence of Vice-Consul Louis Fraser, 1851-1852. Edited by Robin Law. Fontes Historiae Africanae, New Series 10. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. vi, 287; maps, bibliography, index. £55.The kingdom of Dahomey was a thorn in the side of the British government during the latter's campaign to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Dahomean king, Gezo, continued to profit from the export of enslaved Africans from the coastal market at Ouidah well into the nineteenth century, and generally refused to be swayed by European missionaries and diplomats who visited Dahomey to promote the abolitionist cause. One of Britain's few accomplishments in dealing with King Gezo was securing his signature on a treaty for the abolition of the slave trade in 1852. The circumstances under which this treaty was signed are most fully documented in the journals and correspondence of Louis Fraser, who served as British Vice Consul at Ouidah in 1851-1852. In Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Robin Law presents Fraser's journals and correspondence, published for the first time, together with extensive annotations, related documents, and a useful index.Law provides a very helpful introduction to the historical context of these documents and to the sources themselves. The opening section briefly explains the history of Dahomey from its expansion during the era of the slave trade up to its colonization by France in the late nineteenth century. It goes on to describe the importance of the coastal town of Ouidah in Dahomey's political and economic life, a topic on which Law has recently published an excellent monograph. To this African background, Law adds a brief discussion of the British campaign against the slave trade. He explains why, between the 1840s and 1870s, Britain pursued a new strategy of suppressing the slave trade by entering into diplomatic relations with African kings and merchants directly. Lengthier sections describing the creation of a British vice-consulate at Ouidah in the person of Louis Fraser and assessing Fraser's diplomatic abilities-or more precisely, his lack thereof-follow.The book mainly consists of Fraser's journals during his residence at Ouidah from July 1851 to March 1852. As Law explains, Fraser's descriptions of daily events and interactions with various Dahomean officials and merchants of European and/or Brazilian backgrounds convey important details about the workings of the Dahomean kingdom, the nature of trade and society at Ouidah, and the endeavors of the British abolition campaign. …
Ghana Studies
This essay examines three aspects of life on the Gold Coast during the mid-nineteenth century-sla... more This essay examines three aspects of life on the Gold Coast during the mid-nineteenth century-slavery, racism, and political organizing-in terms of what they can reveal about the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and connections between West Africa and the Americas in the abolitionist era.
International Journal of African Historical Studies, 2013
Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: The Journals and Correspondence of Vice... more Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: The Journals and Correspondence of Vice-Consul Louis Fraser, 1851-1852. Edited by Robin Law. Fontes Historiae Africanae, New Series 10. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. vi, 287; maps, bibliography, index. £55.The kingdom of Dahomey was a thorn in the side of the British government during the latter's campaign to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Dahomean king, Gezo, continued to profit from the export of enslaved Africans from the coastal market at Ouidah well into the nineteenth century, and generally refused to be swayed by European missionaries and diplomats who visited Dahomey to promote the abolitionist cause. One of Britain's few accomplishments in dealing with King Gezo was securing his signature on a treaty for the abolition of the slave trade in 1852. The circumstances under which this treaty was signed are most fully documented in the journals and correspondence of Louis Fraser, who served as...
Canadian Journal of African Studies, May 3, 2020
The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Examines the history of the Fante people of southern Ghana during the transatlantic slave trade, ... more Examines the history of the Fante people of southern Ghana during the transatlantic slave trade, 1700 to 1807.
History: Reviews of New Books, 2018
The Journal of the Civil War Era, 2022
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Books by Rebecca Shumway
The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade explores the fascinating history of the transatlantic slave trade on Ghana's coast between 1700 and 1807. Here author Rebecca Shumway brings to life the survival experiences of southern Ghanaians as they became both victims of continuous violence and successful brokers of enslaved human beings. The era of the slave trade gave birth to a new culture in this part of West Africa, just as it was giving birth to new cultures across the Americas. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade pushes Asante scholarship to the forefront of African diaspora and Atlantic World studies by showing the integral role of Fante middlemen and transatlantic trade in the development of the Asante economy prior to 1807.
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.
Papers by Rebecca Shumway
The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade explores the fascinating history of the transatlantic slave trade on Ghana's coast between 1700 and 1807. Here author Rebecca Shumway brings to life the survival experiences of southern Ghanaians as they became both victims of continuous violence and successful brokers of enslaved human beings. The era of the slave trade gave birth to a new culture in this part of West Africa, just as it was giving birth to new cultures across the Americas. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade pushes Asante scholarship to the forefront of African diaspora and Atlantic World studies by showing the integral role of Fante middlemen and transatlantic trade in the development of the Asante economy prior to 1807.
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.