The Atlantic Slave Trade

Catalog description

This course traces the development of the Atlantic slave trade from its fifteenth-century infancy to its abolition in the nineteenth century. Among the topics to be covered: the African cultural context and understanding of slavery; the mechanics of the slave trade; the demographics of the slave trade; the experience of the slave trade for the enslaved and for slavers; comparative European slavery systems; the evolution of western racial thought; the transformative impact of Atlantic slavery on Africa, the Americas and Europe; and the emergence of an international abolitionist movement.