The Vile Trade

Having a global perspective on such a contentious subject such as the one this book attempts to deal with can be a most daunting task. The papers selected for this publication are as diverse as the backgrounds of the authors and ideas that flow from the papers.

Getting a global perspective is an important process because whether we affirm it or not, slavery and slave trade involve both oppressors who create the atmosphere for this pernicious trade to flourish as an economic system, the middlemen facilitators who profited at the expense of the victims of this ignoble trade, as well as the victims themselves. Every chapter should therefore be viewed from the perspective of its socio–economic milieu as well as the idiosyncrasies of the author in order to understand the true synthesis of what each chapter endeavours to enlighten us about. This way everyone will find in this book his or her own story.

This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin.

"The uniqueness of this collection is that it is all encompassing through the vast variety of intellectual and disciplinary perspectives brought into this attempt to struggle with the legacy of slavery within Africa." — T. M. Reese, University of North Dakota