Unbroken Chains

Description

Slavery has torn apart African societies since at least 2,500 BCE and continues to the present day. It afflicted peoples from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Yet most writing covers just one fraction of this – the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The far longer, and almost as numerous, slavery in the Indian Ocean has only recently received much attention. Even less is coverage is given to Africa’s internal slavery: from the Ethiopian kings who enslaved conquered Oromo peoples, to the Sokoto Caliphate which captured non- Muslims in jihad. Finally, there is the enslavement of Europeans by the Barbary corsairs of North Africa, who raided as far as Iceland and Britain – bringing them into conflict with the United States. In 1794, in response to Algerian seizures of American ships, Congress authorised the construction of the first 6 ships of the U.S. Navy. International concern has moved from traditional to modern slavery, leaving today’s African chattel slaves with few international champions. The United Nations and African Union are too embarrassed to confront the African states continuing to permit this practice. The book will use illustrations, maps and tables to provide an accessible introduction to this subject.

Author(s)

Martin Plaut, the BBC World Service's former Africa Editor, has published extensively on African affairs. An adviser to the Foreign Office and the US State Department, he is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.