From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa

Essays, from an African perspective, on the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa.

This edited collection, written by eleven leading specialists, examines the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa: the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and the development of alternative forms of 'legitimate' trade, mainly in vegetable products. Approaching the subject from an African, rather than a European or American, perspective, the case studies consider the effects of transition on the African societies involved. They offer significant insights into the history of pre-colonial Africa and the slave trade, the origins of European imperialism, and longer-term issues of economic development in Africa.

List of contributors; List of abbreviations; Introduction Robin Law; 1. The initial 'crisis of adaptation': the impact of British abolition on the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa, 1808–1820 Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson; 2. The West African palm oil trade in the nineteenth century and the 'crisis of adaptation' Martin Lynn; 3. The compatibility of the slave and palm oil trades in Dahomey, 1818–1858 Elisée Soumonni; 4. Between abolition and Jihad: the Asante response to the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, 1807–1896 Gareth Austin; 5. Plantations and labour in the south-east Gold Coast from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century Ray A. Kea; 6. Owners, slaves and the struggle for labour in the commercial transition at Lagos Kristin Mann; 7. Slaves, Igbo women and palm oil in the nineteenth century Susan Martin; 8. 'Legitimate' trade and gender relations in Yorubaland and Dahomey Robin Law; 9. In search of a desert-edge perspective: the Sahara-Sahel and the Atlantic trade, c. 1815–1900 E. Ann McDougall; 10. The 'New International Economic Order' in the nineteenth century: Britain's first development plan for Africa A. G. Hopkins; Appendix: the 'crisis of adaptation': a bibliography; Index.

This collection of essays deals with the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa: the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and the development of alternative forms of 'legitimate' trade, mainly in vegetable products. Approaching the subject from an African, rather than a European or American, perspective, the case studies consider the effects of transition on the African societies involved.