Gobbets

• The Life of Gustavus Vassa
• Letters of Henry Laurens

Other Sources

Donnan, Elizabeth, Documents illustrative of the slave trade 4 vols

Questions

What were the main characteristics of West African society before white contact? Why did Europeans take slaves from Africa instead of elsewhere? Why did the English get involved? What was the reaction of West Africans to the slave trade?

Core Reading

• Vincent Carretta, 'Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa? New light on an 18thC question of identity' Slavery & Abolition (1999)
• Paul Lovejoy, Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano, the African S&A (2006)
  
• Vincent Caretta, Response to Paul Lovejoy's 'Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano, the African' S&A (2007)
• Paul Lovejoy, Issues of Motivation - Vassa/Equiano and Carretta's Critique of the Evidence S&A (2007)

E-resources

• Klein, Herbert, The Atlantic Slave Trade [ebook]
• Law, Robin The slave coast of West Africa, 1550-1750 : the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on an African society
• Rodney, Walter, 'African slavery and other forms of social oppression on the upper Guinea coast in the context of the Atlantic slave trade' JAfH, 8.3 (1966) 431-443
• Fage, J, 'Slavery & the slave trade in the context of W. African history' JAfH 10 (1969) 393-404
• Stephanie E. Smallwood African Guardians, European Slave Ships, and the Changing Dynamics of Power in the Early Modern Atlantic WMQ (2007)
• Curtin, Philip D.The Atlantic slave trade : a census 
• Rachel Chernos Lin, 'The Rhode Island slave traders: Butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers' S&A (Dec 2002), 21-38
• Westbury, Susan, 'Slaves of colonial Virginia: where they came from' WMQ 42 (1985), 228-237
• Eltis, David, 'Europeans and the rise and fall of African slavery in the Americas: an interpretation' AHR 98 (1993) 1399-1423
• Garland C., & Klein H., 'The allotment of space for slaves aboard 18thC British slave ships' WMQ 42 (1985) 238-248
• Sweig D., 'The importation of African slaves to the Potomac River' WMQ 42 (1985) 507-524
• Elbl, Irgana, 'The volume of the early Atlantic slave trade, 1450-1521' JAfH 38 (1997)
• WMQ April 1999: African and American Atlantic Worlds
• WMQ Jan 2001: New perspectives on the transatlantic slave trade
• O'Malley, Gregory E. Beyond the Middle Passage: Slave Migration from the Caribbean to North America, 1619–1807 WMQ (Jan 2009)
• Crane, E, 'The first wheel of commerce: Newport RI, and the slave trade, 1760-76' S&A 1 (1980), 178-198
• Jones, A, 'The Rhode Island slave trade: a trading advantage in Africa' S & A 2 (1981), 227-244
• Eltis, David, 'Fluctuations in the age and sex ratios in the 19thC transatlantic slave traffic' S&A 7 (1986), 257-272
• Deyle, Steven, 'By far the most profitable trade: slave trading in British colonial North America' S&A 10 (1989), 107-125
• McGowan, W, 'African Resistance to the Atlantic slave trade in W. Africa' S&A 11 (1990), 5-29
• Richardson, D, 'The British slave trade to colonial South Carolina' S&A 12.2 (1991), 125-172
• Westbury, Susan, 'Analysing a regional slave trade: the West Indies and Virginia, 1698-1775' S&A 7 (1986), 241-156
• Lovejoy, Paul E., 'Unfree labour in the development of the Atlantic World'. S&A 15.2 (1994)
• Conrad, David, 'Slavery in Bembara Society: Segou 1712-1861' S&A 2 (1981), 69-80

Additional reading

• McEwan, P, Africa from early times to 1800 (sec 8 & 9)
• Hallett, Robin, Africa to 1875 (ch 7)
• Blake, John W, European beginnings in West Africa, 1454-1578 (ch 5)
• Fage, J D, A History of West Africa (ch 6)
• Davidson, Basil, Black mother, Africa: the years of trial (pt 1 & 2)
• 'The Atlantic Slave Trade' in Gad Heuman (ed.), The Slavery Reader (ch 1-4)
• Klein, Herbert S., The Atlantic Slave Trade
• Thomas, Hugh, The story of the Atlantic slave trade 
• Rawley, James A., The transatlantic slave trade
• Thompson, Vincent, The making of the African diaspora in the Americas, 1491-1900 (pt 1)
• Reynolds, Edward, Stand the storm: a history of the Atlantic slave trade 
• Blake, John, Europeans in West Africa, 1450-1560 2 vols
• Goode, K G, From Africa to the United States