Content area
Full text
THE FANTE AND THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE Rebecca Shumway Publisher: University of Rochester Press: Rochester, NY & Woodbridge, Suffolk Year: 2011, reprinted 2014 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-58046-391-1 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-58046-478-9 ISSN: 1092-5228 Pagination: pp.232 Price: £20.00
In her introduction, Rebecca Shumway crystallizes the essential question that is at the core of this meticulous study of the people of Ghana's Gold Coast during the period of the Atlantic slave trade. She enquires how it came to be that Thomas Melvil, governor of Ghana's British Settlements, writing in 1753, two years into his residency and possessing 'extensive knowledge of the slave trade' could describe the Africans of 'Fanteland's' Anomabo as 'Masters', asking 'who were these Africans who had such a formidable reputation with the English governor of Cape Coast Castle?' (p.2). The book narrates the development of an African elite built on slave brokerage, as well as the history of the African captives sold into slavery between 1700 and 1807, encompassing a detailed account of economic growth, state formation, political structuring and cultural shifts.
The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade diverges from previous accounts of the relationship between Fante political history and the Atlantic slave trade, which have tended...