The slave trade : the story of the Atlantic slave trade, 1440-1870
Hugh Thomas (Author)
After many years of research, award-winning historian Hugh Thomas portrays, in a balanced account, the complete history of the slave trade. Beginning with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, he describes and analyzes the rise of one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures in all of history. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately eleven million black slaves were carried from Africa to the Americas to work on plantations, in mines, or as servants in houses. The Slave Trade is alive with villains and heroes and illuminated by eyewitness accounts. Hugh Thomas's achievement is not only to present a compelling history of the time but to answer as well such controversial questions as who the traders were, the extent of the profits, and why so many African rulers and peoples willingly collaborated. Thomas also movingly describes such accounts as are available from the slaves themselves. -- Back cover
History
908 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
9780684810638, 9780684835655, 0684810638, 0684835657
36884041
pt. 1. Green Sea of Darkness: What heart could be so hard?
Humanity is divided into two
The slaves who find the gold are all black
The Portuguese served for setting dogs to spring the game
I herded them as if they had been cattle
The best and strongest slaves available
For the love of God, give us a pair of slave women
The white men arrived in ships with wings
pt. 2. The Internationalization of the Trade: A good correspondence with the blacks
The black slave is the basis of the hacienda
Lawful to set to sea
He who knows how to supple the slaves will share his wealth
pt. 3. Apogee: No nation has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Great Britain
By the grace of God
pt. 4. The Crossing: A filthy voyage
Great pleasure from our wine
Slave harbors I
Slave harbors II
A great strait for slaves
The blackest sort with short curled hair
If you want to learn how to pray, go to sea
God knows what we shall do with those that remain
pt. 5. Abolition: Above all a good soul
The loudest yelps for liberty
The gauntlet had been thrown down
Men in Africa of as fine feeling as ourselves
Why should we see Great Britain getting all the slave trade?
pt. 6. The Illegal Era: I see ... we have not yet begun the golden age
The slaver is more criminal than the assassin
Only the poor speak ill of the slave trade
Active exertions
Slave harbors of the nineteenth century
Sharks are the invariable outriders of all slave ships
Can we resist the torrent? I think not
They all eagerly desire it, protect it and almost sanctify it
Cuba, the forward sentinel
Epilogue: The slave trade: a reflection
Appendix 1: Some who lived to tell the tale
Appendix 2: The trial of Pedro José de Zulueta in London for trading in slaves
Appendix 3: Estimated statistics
Appendix 4: Selected prices of slaves 1440-1870
Appendix 5: The voyage of the Enterprize