Africa and the Americas

Africa and the Americas is a collection of recent scholarly works addressing pertinent themes and using innovative approaches and methodologies to advance research on the "Atlantic World" by demonstrating how the slave trade facilitated the creation of one world where before there had been many. The volume includes several of the leading scholars from Brazil, North America and Africa. Because of its trans-Atlantic, comparative and inter-disciplinary perspective, it will appeal to scholars and students alike. The organization of this collection of essays reflects an important structural feature of the slave trade itself. That is its circular nature, departing from Africa, coming to America, and then returning to Africa. Thus the volume is separated into three parts. First of all David Eltis, Stephen Behrandt and David Richardson, analyze the slave trade along its national lines and determine that the Portuguese were critically important in the carrying of slaves. They thereby set the context for the next several chapters that deal with questions of ethnic identity, religion and creolization, but specifically within Brazil These include Alpers' discussion of "Mozambiques" as an ethnic group, Nicolau's analysis of Candomble and its African roots in Vodun, Elizabeth Kiddy's comparison of various Lay Religious Brotherhoods of Blacks, Dale Graden's investigation of the relationship between African responses to the end of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and abolitionist initiatives in Bahia, and Joao J. Reis' study of urban labor in Bahia prior to abolition. From this initial section the collection then moves into other areas of the Americas providing comparative essays by Landers who focuses on the material traditions of various Maroon settlements in Spanish America and Brazil, Schuler who analyzes deliverance narratives drawn from the Caribbean to fit these into the framework of a world view shaped by the slave voyage and African beliefs, and Rey's discussion of "root experiences" in Africa which directly affected the nature of religious beliefs and resistance to slavery in Saint-Domingue Completing the loop, the third section brings us back to Africa with Soumonni's comparative analysis of Afro-Brazilian communities in Ouidah and Lagos, and Capela's study of the Brazilian impact on Mozambique politics and ideology, with special reference to the slave trade. Finally Kriger provides a conclusion with her discussion of the challenges facing historians studying culture in the Atlantic world.