Africa and the Americas: Interconnections During the Slave Trade

Africa and the Americas is a collection of recent scholarly works addressing pertinent themes and using innovative approaches and methodologies to advance research on the "Atlantic World" by demonstrating how the slave trade facilitated the creation of one world where before there had been many. The volume includes several of the leading scholars from Brazil, North America and Africa. Because of its trans-Atlantic, comparative and inter-disciplinary perspective, it will appeal to scholars and students alike. The organization of this collection of essays reflects an important structural feature of the slave trade itself. That is its circular nature, departing from Africa, coming to America, and then returning to Africa. Thus the volume is separated into three parts. First of all David Eltis, Stephen Behrandt and David Richardson, analyze the slave trade along its national lines and determine that the Portuguese were critically important in the carrying of slaves. They thereby set the context for the next several chapters that deal with questions of ethnic identity, religion and creolization, but specifically within Brazil.