The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World

G. Ugo Nwokeji

Sep 2010 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

he is contracted to write against his people. Aro don't have the capacity to hunt slaves, the Fulani with British gun and Ashanti who already have military structure did it. shame unto You you deserve no star. can you sell a man size of Mike Tyson without guns and capable military. your parents wasted money to educate you. humandroid

About the author

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).