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REBECCA SHUMWAY , The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade . Rochester NY : University of Rochester Press (hb $85 - 978 1 58046 391 1 ). 2011, ix+232 pp.
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The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is an important contribution to Ghanaian history as well as to the larger field of slave trade studies. As Shumway correctly notes, much has been written on the Fante but only a few scholars have explored the linkages between the historical development of Fante institutions and cultures and the transatlantic slave trade. Shumway has done a remarkable job in pulling together the existing literature, supplementing this with archival research and situating her analysis within the context of the literature on changes that were occurring in other coastal societies in West Africa during the era of the Atlantic slave trade.
To briefly summarize her main points, Shumway argues that 'the rapid growth ... of the transatlantic trade in slaves ... created ... conditions within which the people of southern Ghana completely transformed their political structures and created the groundwork for a new cultural identity'. The political changes she documents involved the creation of a coalition government (as opposed to a full-blown state system or new forms of economic and social networks, as happened elsewhere). The cultural changes included the rise of...