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Manuel Barcia West African Warfare in Bahia and Cuba: Soldier Slaves in the Atlantic World, 18071844. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. xiii + 190 pp. (Cloth US$ 110.00)
Manuel Barcia examines the interconnections between Cuba, Bahia, and the interior of the Bight of Benin during the first several decades of the nineteenth century. He demonstrates that the background of enslaved Africans in war influenced their perceptions of slavery and their responses in the Americas. This refreshing study provides a view of Atlantic history that privileges Africa. Too often the study of the Americas during the era of slavery has not situated historical developments within the changing landscape of both sides of the Atlantic, often despite claims to the contrary. Barcia shows how events in Oyo and the further interior (specifically the impact of jihäd) had a rippling impact that not only changed Yorubaland and indeed the Central Sudan but also set the course of events in Cuba and Brazil in the period before the mid-nineteenth century. This admirable study contributes to a revisionist approach to the study of the Atlantic world by merging the details of slave resistance in Cuba and Brazil with revolutionary transformations in West Africa.
Barcia uses historical sources with considerable ingenuity in showing how events in West Africa were linked to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. He clearly demonstrates how the major historical events of the Sokoto jihäd and the corresponding impact on Oyo after 1817 were related to the many uprisings and conspiracies in both Cuba and Bahia. His chronology of events reveals how the various "Hausa" uprisings in Bahia, the jihäd centered at Ilorin, uprisings in Cuba, and the Male revolt of 1835 were entangled. While it is possible to dispute Barcia's interpretation of specific events and developments, such as the progression of political instability in Oyo, the overall comparative framework is...