The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra

The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra dissects and explains the structure, dramatic expansion, and manifold effects of the slave trade in the Bight of Biafra. By showing that the rise of the Aro merchant group was the key factor in trade expansion, G. Ugo Nwokeji reinterprets why and how such large-scale commerce developed in the absence of large-scale centralized states. The result is the first study to link the structure and trajectory of the slave trade in a major exporting region to the expansion of a specific African merchant group - among other fresh insights into Atlantic Africa's involvement in the trade - and the most comprehensive treatment of Atlantic slave trade in the Bight of Biafra. The fundamental role of culture in the organization of trade is highlighted, transcending the usual economic explanations in a way that complicates traditional generalizations about work, domestic slavery, and gender in pre-colonial Africa.

Author: G. Ugo Nwokeji
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 11/11/2010
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780521883474

Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2011

About the Author
Nwokeji, G. Ugo: - G. Ugo Nwokeji is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the cultural history and political economy of Africa since 1500, with particular focus on international commerce in the Nigerian Niger Delta and its hinterland. Professor Nwokeji is the author of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy's The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Development of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry: History, Strategies, and Current Directions (2007) and multiple journal articles and book chapters, as well as co-editor of Religion, History and Politics in Nigeria (2005).