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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Slavery and its Transformation in the Kingdom of Kongo: 1491-1800
Author:Heywood, Linda M.ISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:The Journal of African History
Volume:50
Issue:1
Pages:1-22
Language:English
Geographic terms:Central Africa
Angola
Subjects:Kongo polity
slavery
slave trade
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/40206695
Abstract:Studies of slavery in Africa during the period of the Atlantic slave trade have largely ignored questions of how political processes affected enslavement during the period and also the extent to which notions of who could be enslaved were modified. Documentation for the kingdom of Kongo in central Africa during the 1500s to 1800 allows us to explore how the trade was sustained and the social and political dynamics behind it. In a state that consistently exported large numbers of slaves throughout the period of the trade, kings of Kongo at first observed quite a pronounced distinction between foreign-born captives subject to enslavement and sale in the Atlantic trade and freeborn Kongos who were largely proctected from enslavement and sale overseas. In time, however, the distinctions that separated foreign-born and Kongos fell apart as later political authorities and others disregarded such distinctions and all Kongos became subject to enslavement and sale overseas. This was a product of internal Kongo conflicts, which witnessed the collapse of institutions and the redefinition of polity, what it meant to be a citizen or freeborn, and who could be enslaved. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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