Where the Negroes Are Masters: An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade

by Randy J. Sparks

Annamaboe was the largest slave trading port on the eighteenth-century Gold Coast, and it was home to successful, wily African merchants whose unusual partnerships with their European counterparts made the town and its people an integral part of the Atlantic's webs of exchange. Where the Negroes Are Masters brings to life the outpost's feverish commercial bustle and continual brutality, recovering the experiences of the entrepreneurial black and white men who thrived on the lucrative traffic in human beings.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Africa, Western Africa

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 2014

Reviews

[Brandon Mounce · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my History class

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book describes the circumstances of the important slave-trading port of Annamaboe (on what today is the coast of Ghana) in late 18th and early 19th century, with emphasis on African agency, creolization processes, and circulation of Fante freemen around the Atlantic basin. To me, it was eye-opening in a number of respects.

The story of the book is pieced together from the archives of Royal African Company, various contemporary publications in Great Britain and American colonies, and church records. Thus, all African agency is translated through European and American sources or otherwise has to be inferred from them. The story is very detailed; the reader may view the details as burden or as interesting anecdotes. Each detail comes with a reference to an extensive bibliography, there is an index and an encyclopedic alphabetic appendix.

The penultimate chapter of the book describes the scary circumstances of Asante takeover of the coastal areas of modern Ghana in 1807. It serves as a great introduction to Bowdich's report on a British diplomatic mission to the Asante in 1817. It also serves as a powerful reminder that even at that time, the coastal presence of the mighty British empire in West Africa was at the mercy of local rulers.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The easiest and most fun read in the class (I love the biographical approach) but shamefully Eurocentric; Sparks' conception of the "port" is tacitly limited to the European outpost and does not include the African town that surrounds it and is a major part of its story. Also, as Sparks is primarily an Americanist the work lacks the nuance that better-versed Africanist historians bring to such work.

[Beverley]

It's amazing that people will condemn other people to a life of slavery in trade for trinkets. I learned some interesting things; however, the entire book was primarily about one slave shipping center on the Ghanian coast. Too much detail for my interest level.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting information overall, but slowed badly by continuos small stories.