Humans in shackles
an Atlantic history of slavery
- ISBN: 9780226771588
- Editorial: University of Chicago Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2024
- Lugar de la edición: Chicago. Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
- Encuadernación: Cartoné
- Medidas: 24 cm
- Nº Pág.: 640
- Idiomas: Inglés
A sweeping narrative history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas.
During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, more than twelve million enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas in cramped, inhumane conditions. Many of them died on the way, and those who survived had to endure further suffering in the violent conditions that met them onshore. Covering more than three hundred years, Humans in Shackles grapples with this history by foregrounding the lived experience of enslaved people in tracing the long, complex history of slavery in the Americas.
Based on twenty years of research, this book not only serves as a comprehensive history; it also expands that history by providing a truly transnational account that emphasizes the central role of Brazil in the Atlantic slave trade. Additionally, it is deeply informed by African history and shows how African practices and traditions survived and persisted in the Americas among communities of enslaved people. Drawing on primary sources including travel accounts, pamphlets, newspaper articles, slave narratives, and visual sources such as artworks and artifacts, Araujo illuminates the social, cultural, and religious lives of enslaved people working in plantations and urban areas, building families and cultivating affective ties, congregating and re-creating their cultures, and organizing rebellions.
Humans in Shackles puts the lived experiences of enslaved peoples at the center of the story and investigates the heavy impact these atrocities have had on the current wealth disparity of the Americas and rampant anti-Black racism.
Introduction: An Atlantic cultural history
Violent encounters
Catching people
Trading in humans
Atlantic crossings
Discarded lives
Markets of human flesh
Plantation worlds
Toiling in the city
Women who fed the city
Sex and violence
Creating and re-creating families
Mothers in shackles
Resisting bondage
Ways of congregating
Rebellion across borders
Fighting for freedom
Africa's homecomings
Epilogue: Afterlives of slavery