From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce

This edited collection, written by eleven leading specialists, examines the nineteenth-century commercial transition in West Africa: the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and the development of alternative forms of 'legitimate' trade, mainly in vegetable products. Approaching the subject from an African, rather than a European or American, perspective, the case studies consider the effects of transition on the African societies involved. They offer significant insights into the history of pre-colonial Africa and the slave trade, the origins of European imperialism, and longer-term issues of economic development in Africa.

ISBN	0521481279	Volumes	1
ISBN13	9780521481274 (What's this?)	Weight (grammes)	600
Publisher	Cambridge University Press	Published in	Cambridge
Imprint	Cambridge University Press	Series editor	Lonsdale, J. M. (Trinity College, Cambridge), Lonsdale, J. M. (Trinity College, Cambridge), Lonsdale
Format	Hardback	Series ISSN	86
Publication date	17 Aug 1995	Series title	African Studies
Library of Congress	HF3920 .F76 1995	Height (mm)	228
DEWEY	382.0966	Width (mm)	152
DEWEY edition	DC20	Spine width (mm)	21
Pages	292	Academic level	Professional / Scholarly

	List of contributors
	List of abbreviations
	Introduction by Robin Law	1
1	The initial 'crisis of adaptation': the impact of British abolition on the Atlantic slave trade in West Africa, 1808-1820 by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson	32
2	The West African palm oil trade in the nineteenth century and the 'crisis of adaptation' by Martin Lynn	57
3	The compatibility of the slave and palm oil trades in Dahomey, 1818-1858 by Elisee Soumonni	78
4	Between abolition and Jihad, the Asante response to the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, 1807-1896 by Gareth Austin	93
5	Plantations and labour in the south east Gold Coast from the late eighteenth to the mid nineteenth century by Ray A. Kea	119
6	Owners, slaves and the struggle for labour in the commercial transition at Lagos by Kristin Mann	144
7	Slaves, Igbo women and palm oil in the nineteenth century by Susan Martin	172
8	'Legitimate' trade and gender relations in Yorubaland and Dahomey by Robin Law	195
9	In search of a desert-edge perspective: the Sahara-Sahel and the Atlantic trade, c. 1815-1900 by E. Ann McDougall	215
10	The 'New International Economic Order' in the nineteenth century: Britain's first Development Plan for Africa by A. G. Hopkins	240
	Appendix: the 'crisis of adaptation': a bibliography	265
	Index	272

"The volume nicely marks the maturation in African historiography since Hopkins first raised the question inspiring it." Historian

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The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa

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