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This study attempts an exploratory overview of African military slavery, which is marked by the unusual longevity of the phenomenon and by its surviving social legacy. Before the colonial period military slavery was not confined (as is often supposed) to the Muslim states of North Africa and the Sahel, but was also practiced in many non-Muslim sub-Saharan societies. In the late nineteenth century the colonial powers liberated, conscripted or purchased African slave soldiers for their own armies. Although the institution of military slavery died away during the colonial period, it has re-emerged in independent Africa as child soldiering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The making and continuous shifts of African identities outside Africa have attracted interest from across critical disciplines. Imaginative literature has achieved a considerable status as a site and optic for critical engagement with evolving dynamics of the diasporization of African identities. This article sets out to extend what is known about this 'function' of literature by looking at how representations of female experiences of forced trans-oceanic African mobilities can potentially disrupt male-centred narratives and epistemologies, to become a critical site to read shifting trans-Atlantic African identities. Using Yaa Gyasi's novel Homegoing (2016), the paper explores how the metaphor of female descendancy dominating the narrative emplotment of female experiences of being and becoming African and African American in America, can be read as potentially illuminating and problematizing notions of African diasporic identities and in the process, charting new frames for re-imagining the present and future of African identities in the context of their pasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We trace the development of human capital in today's Senegal, Gambia, and Western Mali between 1770 and 1900. European trade, slavery, and early colonialism were linked to human capital formation, but this connection appears to have been heterogeneous. The contact with the Atlantic slave trade increased regional divergence, as the coast of Senegambia developed more quickly than inner areas. This pattern was affected by French early colonialism and by the reaction of different West African populations to the economic incentives provided by foreign demand for agricultural products. The peanut trade since the mid-nineteenth century further amplified regional economic inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to the recent wave of historical studies that have examined the immediate social transformations implied by slavery abolition on gender relations. It highlights slave women's attempts to alter their status and the personal agency they displayed in the immediate post-proclamation period in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). During this very early period (1874-1877) women were quite an active presence in the colonial court and the percentage of cases discussing the right of women to leave their husbands increased. Traditional and colonial powers soon reacted to this changing situation. There were two main constraints to women's emancipation. On one hand there was a general confusion on the legal status of wives within traditional family, and on the other, the logic of debt concealed within the repayment of dowries tried to force women back into bondage even when they succeeded in changing their status from slaves to free women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the practice of temporary female seclusion on the southern Swahili Coast in colonial East Africa during Interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, including the impact of slavery on this practice. An overview of the social status of ex-slaves on the Swahili Coast, including the stigma attached to formerly being a slave, is provided.

The article discusses the social legacy of slavery in post-slave emancipation, or abolition, in the British colonial Sierra Leone from 1928 through 1956. An overview of the role that the British colonial government administration played in efforts to transition former slaves into forced labor, including the impact it had on local chiefs' ability to employ forced labor, is provided.

This article examines the development of the institution known as ‘castle slavery’ on the Gold Coast (West Africa) in the era of the transatlantic slave trade. It places the lived experiences of castle slaves within a comparative Atlantic World context and argues that castle slavery bore significant resemblances to forms of creole elite slavery in the Americas. It also explores the particularly complex roles of female castle slaves in the daily life and operation of European-trading posts in Gold Coast towns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the seventeenth century, Europeans on the Gold Coast took gold pawns as security for debt, but from the early eighteenth century, they turned increasingly toward the use of human pawns. This shift was the result of a transformation in levels of demand for gold amongst African sellers, most notably the Asante, who began to secure control over local gold sources from c. 1700. The change in demand for gold was accompanied by a rise in slave prices on the West African coast, but it was the indigenous system of debt recovery that proved crucial to the success of European trade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The role of the British state and the Royal Navy in the settlements on the west coast of Africa and in the transatlantic slave trade during the eighteenth century is a subject of a near-total historiographic neglect. This article surveys the parameters of British West African enterprise and the ways in which the navy was centrally involved in coastal affairs. It examines two case studies that are emblematic of the nature of state attention to West African enterprise and the application of naval power in support of British goals on the coast during the period immediately preceding the Seven Years' War. The first treats a 1750–1751 conflict at Dixcove on the western Gold Coast between the British and Dutch. The second, a protracted dispute between Britain and France over the construction of a settlement at Anomabo from 1751 to 1753, was an important pre-war skirmish that has heretofore been ignored by scholars. By winning the acquiescence of local polities and pre-empting French intervention by dispatching a squadron of warships to the coast, the British were able to secure the site for themselves. The article concludes with some reflections on the nature of sea power and empire on the African coast and the broader implications of this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the South African Historical Journal reflects on the state of the field of pre-industrial history at the Cape of Good Hope. It is an opportunity to look back on the previous decade of research, identify accomplishments, and chart future directions. We note a significant historiographical shift from research that focused broadly on colonised peoples, particularly slaves and Khoesan, to emerging literatures that give equally careful attention to colonisers. This shift moves the field toward a more complete picture of colonial society; it accompanies a present period of political uncertainty. The growing body of scholarship on early colonial history is drawing more practitioners. The resulting exploration of new topics and the revision of existing interpretations are producing robust, methodologically diverse work, especially noteworthy for its interdisciplinarity. While this work increasingly situates the Cape in broader regional and global histories, even more intentional efforts are required in order to avoid parochialism. The transition from Dutch to British rule at the Cape also requires further scrutiny. These efforts have the ability to challenge existing periodisations and lead to a re-examination of the continuities before and after the mineral revolutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a sociological analysis of Christianity and African societies, highlighting Ghana through the literary works "Two Thousand Seasons" and "The Sun By Night." It explores the Ghanaian (African) experience of slavery, colonialism, and freedom, including the manner of Christianisation during the time period of the two novels. It also cites the reflections on the process of Christianization in Africa as depicted within the social setting in the novels.

Highlights the Africa Social Forum on re-colonization and slavery in Lusaka, Zambia. History of injustices and oppression through colonialism in African countries; Impact of the ideology of neoliberalism on African life; Increase in the proportion of Africans living in absolute poverty.

Analyzes the potential for reparations between European and African countries as a solution to the issues of slavery and colonialism. Freedom and self-determination for Africa; Information on contemporary human rights in international law; Reparations by treaty; Data on potential African reparations.

The author of this article comments on the work of author Mahmood Mamdani. When one begins to review colonial histories for analytical resonance between African and Latin American experiences, the differences between the regions at first appear overwhelming. One first notices that most Latin American nations had long been nominally independent before most of Africa was colonized by Europe. Mamdani underscores "the division between the racialized citizen and the ethnicized subject. This important distinction is relevant for Latin America but is only just beginning to be explored systematically. Most Afro-Latin Americans are excluded politically along the lines of the "racialization" of the citizenry described by Mamdani. The process of slavery was designed to destroy the ethnic legacies that could have supported "customary" authority structures, such as those used by indirect rule in Africa. Pre-colonial governance structures included a wide range of power relations and decision making processes, from more authoritarian to more democratic and accountable. Mamdani stresses that colonial rulers generally managed to strip much of the democratic content out of Africa's "traditional" patterns of governance, leaving a system of "decentralized despotism."