“The first history of the Atlantic slave trade culled from the memories of those Africans left behind . . . it will forever alter our understanding of the Middle Passage.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!

The story of the Atlantic slave trade has largely been filtered through the eyes and records of white Europeans, but in this watershed book, Anne C. Bailey focuses on memories of the trade from the African perspective. African chiefs and other elders in an area of southeastern Ghana once famously called “the Old Slave Coast” share stories that reveal that Africans were both traders and victims of the trade. Though Africans were not equal partners with Europeans, their involvement had devastating consequences on their history and sense of identity.

Like victims of trauma, many African societies now experience a fragmented view of their past that partially explains the blanket of silence and shame around the slave trade. Capturing astonishing oral histories that were handed down through generations of storytellers—like an 1856 incident involving the kidnapping of famous drummers and traders by Europeans and Americans—Bailey breaks the deafening silence around slavery and explores the delicate and fragmented nature of historical memory in this rare, unprecedented book.

“In a path-breaking work, Anne C. Bailey utilizes the power of oral traditions to reconstruct the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The book powerfully illuminates the importance of the concrete cultural survival of African traditions within the Atlantic slave trade and slavery.” —Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine Segal Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, and chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights

"Focusing on the stories passed down from generation to generation among the Anlo Ewe community in southern Ghana — an area once known as the Slave Coast — Spelman College historian Bailey offers a noteworthy, carefully researched contribution to the study of the African slave trade. Few accounts in the copious literature have adequately addressed the African viewpoint, says Bailey, and the oral histories she offers are designed to correct that silence. Examples include 'the incident at Atorkor': sometime in the 1850s, a breakdown in the working (though unequal) relationship between white slave traders and a coastal African chief — the chief's kin were taken along with inland, 'approved' captives — heralded a new phase in the slave trade, one in which African slave traders became nearly as vulnerable as their African captives. In compact chapters, Bailey considers the political and economic impact of the slave trade on the West African region; West and Central Africa's class-based practices of domestic slavery; and the issue of European, American and African agency in the slave trade. Though dense prose makes this a better choice for the scholar than the lay reader, Bailey brings unheard historical voices to the fore." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Bailey (history, Spelman College) provides a previously unheard perspective on the slave trade by focusing on the few stories that have been remembered in the Anlo Ewe community, residents of an area in southeastern Ghana once famously called the old Slave Coast. She uses their oral histories as a starting point to bridge the gap between narratives in Africa and the Diaspora.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)