Mechanisms of Slave Acquisition and Exchange in Late Eighteenth Century Anomabu: Reconsidering a Cross-Section of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Abstract

loyal and hardworking, but also troublesome and rebellious. Individually and collectively, these slaves have been linked to rebellions "from the Virgin Islands to Suriname, from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century," and especially to acts of resistance and the establishment of maroon communities in Jamaica.' Several general theories in contemporary and modern discourse have been put forward to explain this pattern. Eighteenth century explanations that placed an emphasis on the 'nature' of various African ethnicities have been largely discredited. An alternate argument, focusing on West African regional histories, might point us towards the surfeit of armed conflicts that characterize the rise of the