Description
Book SynopsisThis book analyzes the Gold Coast and the Asante kingdom in the years following the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and prior to the start of colonial rule. The Asante state, one of the largest in the Gold Coast and West Africa after the eighteenth century is the central focus of this work. Studying their transition from a large scale supplier of captives to the transatlantic slave trade to traders in legitimate goods is a critical component that should be analyzed across West Africa. This work highlights the political and economic relationships between the interior Asante state with surrounding African groups and Europeans, chiefly British traders who entered the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Trade ReviewHargrove’s study provocatively asks us to consider the roles of Africans in ending the transatlantic slave trade. By placing the end of the slave trade on the Gold Coast (Ghana) within the context of the much longer history of transatlantic trade and diplomacy in West Africa, this work offers a new perspective from which to assess Asante’s history as an economic and political power. It is among an important group of new works that insist on the inseparable qualities of African history and the history of the African diaspora. -- Rebecca Shumway, College of Charleston
Hargrove explores a wide range of political and economic developments surrounding the rise and fall of the Asante during the era of British imperial expansion and he shift from the slave trade to ‘legitimate commerce.’ … The book does provide considerable detail, useful statistics, and some excellent maps. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsChapter 1: European Arrival in West Africa and the Gold Coast: Portuguese, Dutch and British, 1440–1680 Chapter 2: The Akan and the Formation of the Asante State Chapter 3: Slave Trading and Trade Routes on the Gold Coast: The Fight for the Coast Line, 1770–1820 Chapter 4: The Gold Coast, Abolition Laws and the Era of Illegal Slave Trading, 1776–1842 Chapter 5: Economic Transition within Greater Asante in the Mid-nineteenth Century Chapter 6: The Asante–British Treaties and Conflicts, 1817–1874
