Black ivory: A history of British slavery - Softcover

James Walvin

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9780006862925: Black ivory: A history of British slavery

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006862926 ISBN 13: 9780006862925

Publisher: Fontana Press, 1844

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This social history looks at African slavery and the Atlantic slave trade which, in the space of 300 years, transported more than 11 million Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean - with millions more dying en route. No other slave system in world history was so regulated and determined by the question of race, or had forcibly removed so many people and scattered them across such vast distances or had such prodigious results for the slave-owning class. Using contemporary accounts, this book shows how the British maritime trade and power were transformed by the Atlantic slave trade, and how ports like Bristol, Liverpool and London grew into international trading centres on the backs of the slaves. The book describes the enslavement of Africans, the brutal conditions for the human cargoes, the slave auctions and prosperous plantocracies of the slave colonies in the West Indian islands of Barbados and Jamaica, the songs of the slaves, revolts and runaways, the effects of conversion to Christianity and growing literacy among the slaves, the abolition campaign, the problems of freedom and the legacy of racism.

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From the Back Cover:

The brutal story of African slavery in the British colonies of the West Indies and North America is told with clarity and compassion in this classic history. James Walvin explores the experiences which bound together slaves from diverse African backgrounds and explains how slavery transformed the tastes and economy of the Western world.

Although written for readers with no prior knowledge of the subject, Walvins's account is based on detailed scholarship, drawing on a body of work from the USA, the West Indies and Britain. All aspects of African slavery up to 1776 are covered; the situation of women, flight and rebellion, disease and death, the conditions on the slave ships, the abolition campaign and much more. The narrative is enlivened and personalised by frequent reference to individual lives.

For this revised edition, the author has incorporated recent scholarly findings and updated the notes and bibliography in order to keep the book current.

About the Author:

James Walvin is Professor of History at the University of York. He has written widely on slave history and British social history and his recent publications include Questioning Slavery (1996), Making the Black Atlantic (2000), The Slave Trade (1999) and Britains's Slave Empire (2000).

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