Slavery, Freedom, and Development : How Africa Became the Mirror Image of Europe / Warren C. Whatley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whatley, Warren C., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Transatlantic slave trade.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (258 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Slavery, Freedom, & Development

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026.

Summary:

In this innovative reinterpretation of the economic history of Africa and Europe, Warren C. Whatley argues that freedom from Western-style slavery is the origin of modern Western economic growth. Such freedom was achieved around the 13th century in Western European Christendom by making enslavement among European Christians a sin but still a recognized property right and form of wealth. After 1500, the triangular trade in the North Atlantic integrates the slave and free sectors of expanding European Empires, spreading freedom and development in Europe and slavery and underdevelopment in Africa. Whatley documents when the slave and/or free sectors drove the expansion of Empire, and how exposure to slave trades in Africa spread institutions and norms better suited to capturing and trading people - slavery, polygyny, ethnic stratification and inherited aristocracies - some of the mechanisms through which the past is still felt in Africa today.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title page

Title page

Copyright page

Contents

List of Figures

List of Maps

List of Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Reinterpreting African Economic History

A Shockingly Simple Idea

Freedom and Slavery in African Economic History

Evidence

Documents

The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database (TSTD), circa 1500-1860.

The Ethnographic Atlas (EA), circa 1900.

Merging TSTD and EA.

The Anglo-African Trade Statistics.

Sankofa

From Walter Rodney to Path Dependence

2 Going Behind the Mirror Image

The Social Construction of the Mirror Image

Slavery and Freedom as Social Norms

Defining Slavery

Defining Freedom

The Inefficiencies of Slavery and Freedom Dividends

Serfdom Is Not Slavery

3 Lessons from Slavery in World History

Large-Scale Slavery in World History

Wars Produce Slave Wealth

The Social Reproduction of Slave Wealth

Matrilineal Slave Cultures.

Patrilineal Slave Cultures.

Western Slave Cultures.

Chinese Slave Cultures.

Near East/Muslim Slave Cultures.

Summary of Lessons

4 On the Origins of Western Freedom and Development

What Do Economic Historians Have to Say?

Patterson on Slavery and Freedom in Western Culture

From Slavery to Freedom in Western Europe

Freedom and Development inside Christendom

Was Patterson Right?

The Slave Trade as Critique of Eurocentrism

From Freedom to Slavery outside Christendom

5 African Development before the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Population Question

The Fly in the Ointment

The Plow in Africa

Population Density and African Slavery

The Golden Alternative

Gold as a Window into Africa's Past

6 The Transatlantic Slave Trade in Africa

The Economics of British Slave Supply

The Gun-Slave Cycle

The Gun-Slave Cycle in Action.

The Inland Penetration of Capture

7 How African-American Slavery Grew the Free Economies of Europe

The Economic History of the New History of Capitalism

The Triangular Trade

When Slavery Fed Freedom

8 Into the Interior of Africa

The Need for Speed

A Guide across the Landscape

Nineteenth-Century Asante: Where Place Marked Time

Extremes and Making a Mosaic

The Burden of Headload

Nineteenth-Century Britain: Where Time Marked Place

Henry Morton Stanley's Travel Log

Rivers as Natural Highways

Using Local Knowledge about the Best Path Forward

Travel Time as a Measure of Exposure

9 How the Slave Trades Underdeveloped Africa

The Fundamental Impact

Two Extremes That Prove the Rule: Asante and Aro

The Impact of Exposure on Norms and Institutions

The Additional Impact in Catchment Zones

Revolutionary Times

The Macroeconomics of Underdevelopment

10 Past, Present, and Future

Whatever Happened to Prester John?

How Slavery and Polygyny Solve the Matrilineal Puzzle

King Cotton: The Wealthiest Slave System in Human History

On Reparations for Slavery

Appendix to Chapter 5

Appendix to Chapter 6

Appendix to Chapter 9

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Feb 2026).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-009-40717-1

1-009-40719-8

1-009-40715-5

OCLC:

1570348173