Eurafricans in western Africa : commerce, social status, gender, and religious observance from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century / George E. Brooks.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brooks, George E., 1933-

Series:

Western African studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Commerce.

Colonies.

History.

Europeans.

Multiracial people.

Ethnic relations.

Africa, West--Ethnic relations.

Africa, West.

Multiracial people--Africa, West--History.

Europeans--Africa, West--History.

Africa, West--History--To 1884.

West Africa.

Europe--Colonies--Africa--History.

Europe.

Africa, West--Commerce--Europe.

Europe--Commerce--Africa, West.

Slave trade--Africa, West--History.

Slave trade.

Africa.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 355 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press ; Oxford : James Currey, 2003.

Summary:

Eurafricans in Western Africa traces the rich social and commercial history of western Africa. The most comprehensive study to date, it begins prior to the sixteenth century when huge profits made by middlemen on trade in North African slaves, salt, gold, pepper, and numerous other commodities prompted Portuguese reconnaissance voyages along the coast of western Africa. From Senegal to Sierra Leone, Portuguese, including "New Christians" who reverted to Judaism while living in western Africa, thrived where riverine and caravan networks linked many African groups. Portuguese and their Luso-African descendants contended with French, Dutch, and English rivals for trade in gold, ivory, slaves, cotton textiles, iron bars, cowhides, and other African products. As the Atlantic slave trade increased, French and Franco-Africans and English and Anglo-Africans supplanted Portuguese and Luso-Africans in many African places of trade. Eurafricans in Western Africa follows the changes that took root in the eighteenth century when French and British colonial officials introduced European legal codes, and concludes with the onset of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, when suppression of the slave trade and expanding commerce in forest and agricultural commodities again transformed circumstances in western Africa. Professor George E. Brooks's outstanding history of these vital aspects of western Africa is enriched by his discussion of the roles of the women who married or cohabited with European traders. Through accounts of incidents and personal histories, which are integrated into the narrative, the lives of these women and their children are accorded a prominent place in Professor Brooks's fascinating discussion of this dynamic region of Africa.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Western Africa: Ecological Zones and Human Geography 1

Chapter 2 Commercial Networks: Biafada-Sapi, Banyun-Bak, and Cabo Verdean-Lancado 37

Chapter 3 Portuguese, Luso-Africans, and European Competitors 68

Chapter 4 Western Africa and the Onset of an Era of Droughts, Famines, and Global Economic Transformations 102

Chapter 5 The Evolution of "Nharaship" in Senegambia 122

Chapter 6 Trade with the Kaabu Empire and Serra Leoa 161

Chapter 7 Era of the Second Cacheu Company 184

Chapter 8 Expanding Slave-Trading Networks and the Corruption of African Social and Cultural Patterns 198

Chapter 9 Senegambia: Luso-Africans Supplanted by Franco-Africans 250

Chapter 10 Geba-Grande and Serra Leoa: Luso-Africans Challenged and Supplanted by Anglo-Africans 288.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-342) and index.

ISBN:

0821414852

0821414860

0852554990

0852554893

OCLC:

51446039