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African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Beyond the Silence and the Shame

Author: Anne C. Bailey

While growing up in Jamaica, Anne C. Bailey heard stories of her grandfather's intelligence and her great-grandmother's fiery temper-stories that resonated throughout her childhood. But when she decided to look further back, a wide and uncharted gap opened in her family's history. Knowing that her ancestors were probably slaves, yet without any coherent record of this heritage, Bailey found herself stranded in the prevailing silence. All that remained were fragments of stories and whispers of the past.

For centuries, the story of the Atlantic slave trade has been filtered through the eyes and records of white Europeans. In this watershed book, historian Anne C. Bailey focuses on memories of the trade from the African perspective. African chiefs and other elders in an area of southeastern Ghana-once famously called "the Old Slave Coast"-share stories that reveal that Africans were traders as well as victims of the trade.

Bailey argues that, like victims of trauma, many African societies now experience a fragmented view of their past that partially explains the blanket of silence and shame around the slave trade. Bailey's desire to understand this emotionally charged and complex history was initially met with resistance and dismay, as a comment by Chief Awusa of Atorkor reveals: "It's an awful story. It's an awful story. Why do you want to bring this up now?"

Capturing scores of oral histories that were handed down through generations of storytellers-like an 1856 incident in which famous drummers and traders were kidnapped by Europeans and Americans-Bailey finds that, although Africans were not equal partners with Europeans, even their partial involvement in the slave trade had devastating consequences on their history and identity.

Bailey breaks the deafening silence and explores the delicate and fragmented nature of historical memory in this unprecedented and revelatory book.

"In a field dominated by body counts and travelers' accounts, Anne Bailey has produced the first history of the Atlantic slave trade culled from the memories of those Africans left behind. Possessing the qualities of an epic novel, African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade will forever alter our understanding of the Middle Passage."
-Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

"In a pathbreaking work, Anne Bailey utilizes the power of oral traditions to reconstruct the history of the Atlantic slave trade. The book powerfully illuminates the importance of the concrete cultural survival of African traditions within the Atlantic slave trade and slavery."
-Mary Frances Berry, chairperson of the United States Commission on Civil Rights

"A true work of retrieval and restoration, African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade is unusually poignant because it places the voices of communities that suffered from the slave trade at the center of the discussion. A remarkable gift."
-Ato Quayson, director, African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge, UK

Anne C. Bailey is assistant professor of history at Spelman College. The author of two historical novels, she has spent time in and among various communities in Ghana, collecting numerous oral histories. Bailey lives with her son, Mickias Joseph, in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Reviews

Review by: Robin D. G. Kelley, Author of Yo' Mama's Disfunktional! - January 2, 2005
"The first history of the Atlantic slave trade culled from the memories of those Africans left behind . . . it will forever alter our understanding of the Middle Passage."
Review by: Mary Frances Berry, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania - January 2, 2005
"In a path-breaking work, Anne C. Bailey utilizes the power of oral traditions to reconstruct the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The book powerfully illuminates the importance of the concrete cultural survival of African traditions within the Atlantic slave trade and slavery."

African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade

ISBN: 978-080705512-0
 Publication Date: 1/2/2005
 Pages: 304
 Size: x Inches (US)
Price:  $26.00
Format: Cloth
Availability: Not currently available.
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