From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The initial ‘crisis of adaptation’: the impact of British abolition on the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa, 1808–1820
- 2 The West African palm oil trade in the nineteenth century and the ‘crisis of adaptation’
- 3 The compatibility of the slave and palm oil trades in Dahomey, 1818–1858
- 4 Between abolition and Jihad: the Asante response to the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, 1807–1896
- 5 Plantations and labour in the south-east Gold Coast from the late eighteenth to the mid nineteenth century
- 6 Owners, slaves and the struggle for labour in the commercial transition at Lagos
- 7 Slaves, Igbo women and palm oil in the nineteenth century
- 8 ‘Legitimate’ trade and gender relations in Yorubaland and Dahomey
- 9 In search of a desert-edge perspective: the Sahara-Sahel and the Atlantic trade, c. 1815–1900
- 10 The ‘New International Economic Order’ in the nineteenth century: Britain's first Development Plan for Africa
- Appendix The ‘crisis of adaptation’: a bibliography
- Index
9 - In search of a desert-edge perspective: the Sahara-Sahel and the Atlantic trade, c. 1815–1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The initial ‘crisis of adaptation’: the impact of British abolition on the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa, 1808–1820
- 2 The West African palm oil trade in the nineteenth century and the ‘crisis of adaptation’
- 3 The compatibility of the slave and palm oil trades in Dahomey, 1818–1858
- 4 Between abolition and Jihad: the Asante response to the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, 1807–1896
- 5 Plantations and labour in the south-east Gold Coast from the late eighteenth to the mid nineteenth century
- 6 Owners, slaves and the struggle for labour in the commercial transition at Lagos
- 7 Slaves, Igbo women and palm oil in the nineteenth century
- 8 ‘Legitimate’ trade and gender relations in Yorubaland and Dahomey
- 9 In search of a desert-edge perspective: the Sahara-Sahel and the Atlantic trade, c. 1815–1900
- 10 The ‘New International Economic Order’ in the nineteenth century: Britain's first Development Plan for Africa
- Appendix The ‘crisis of adaptation’: a bibliography
- Index
Summary
During the Atlantic slave trade, the desert-edge functioned as an interface not only between the Sahara and Sudan, but also between their economic systems and those of the Senegambian coast. It influenced the slave trade's operation, its price structure, and its impact on the far interior. When abolition came, its impact also was refracted through this desert-edge prism. This essay studies the nature of this impact as measured in the social, political and economic changes which followed in its wake.
The essay is divided into four sections. The first sketches existing perspectives on the ending of the slave trade in West Africa, and situates those specific to the ‘interior’ in historiographical context. Key to this is the work of Claude Meillassoux. His arguments frame the analysis in the second section, which questions established interpretations of price behaviour and gender preference in the slave trade. In the third section, revisionist interpretations are suggested, based largely on work by Martin Klein, Richard Roberts, James Webb, John Hanson, Paul Lovejoy and David Richardson, and myself. In the fourth and final section, I return to the larger picture of the impact of abolition, and offer some observations of what this revisionist analysis means for this ongoing debate, especially with regard to A. G. Hopkins' influential concept of a ‘crisis of adaptation’.
Historiography
In thirty years of debate over the impact of the ending of the Atlantic slave trade on West Africa, the theme of continuity or change has remained central.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' CommerceThe Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa, pp. 215 - 239Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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