Commercial Transitions and Abolition in West Africa 16301860 [Kietas viršelis]

"Commercial Transitions and Abolition in West Africa 1630-1860 by Angus Dalrymple-Smith offers a fresh perspective on why the most important West African states and merchants who traded with Atlantic markets became exporters of commodities instead of slaves in the nineteenth century. This study takes a long-term comparative approach and makes of use of new quantitative data. It argues that the timing and nature of the change from slave exports to so-called 'legitimate commerce' in the Gold Coast, the Bight of Biafra and the Bight of Benin, can be predicted by patterns of trade established in previous centuries by a range of African and European actors responding to the changing political and economic environments of the Atlantic world"--

After Britain and other destination countries withdrew from the transatlantic slave trade, the cargoes shifted during the first half of the 19th century from human beings to other commodities, says Dalrymple-Smith, and this shift is known as the Commercial Transition in West African historiography. He explores the phenomenon from the perspectives of trends in the (non-slave) trade with West Africa during the 18th century, and the long-term roots of the commercial transitions: case studies. Among his topics are commercial agriculture and the slave ship provisioning 1680-1800; the Gold Coast: gold, wealth, and power among the Akans; and the Bight of Biafra: from export slavery to slave production. Annotation ©2020 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Commercial Transitions and Abolition in West Africa 1630–1860 by Angus Dalrymple-Smith offers a new interpretation of the move from slave exports to ‘legitimate commerce’ in the Gold Coast, the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra.