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Ipsen Pernille . Daughters of the Trade: Atlantic Slavers and Interracial Marriage on the Gold Coast. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press , 2015. xviii + 269 pp. Maps. Notes. Notes on Sources. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. $49.95. Cloth. ISBN: 978-0812246735.
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Pernille Ipsen's Daughters of the Trade is a rare study of marriage practices and experiences at the intersection of two oft-neglected spaces: the Danish Atlantic and Ga-speaking communities on the Gold Coast of West Africa. As Ipsen ably demonstrates, there is much to be learned from Dano-Ga society that can help us more broadly conceptualize the Atlantic and those who made their lives at its edges and across its waters.
Ipsen's study focuses on casssare (interracial) marriages in the region surrounding the Danish fort at Christiansborg, within the confines of the Osu district in modern-day Accra. Her narrative extends from the beginning of the eighteenth century to 1850, when the Danes officially sold their fort and possessions to the British government. Her sources are government and church records, private letters, and official correspondence, from which she produces a discursive and cultural history of attitudes toward cassare marriages and the experiences of those who were its participants or offspring. Ipsen demonstrates...