Table Of Contentmore information – www.cambridge.org/9780521622172
Studies in Comparative World History
Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic
world,
1400-1800
Studies in Comparative World History
Editors
Michael Adas, Rutgers University
Edmund Burke III, University of California, Santa Cruz
Philip D. Curtin, The Johns Hopkins University
Other books in the series
Michael Adas, Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements
against the European Colonial Order (1979)
Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (1984)
Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria,
Brazil, and West Africa, 1780-1945 (1989)
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World,
1400-1680 (1992)
Marshall G. S. Hodgson and Edmund Burke III (eds.), Rethinking
World History (1993)
David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism,
1834-1922 (1995)
Africa and Africans in
the making of the
Atlantic world,
1400-1800
Second edition
JOHN THORNTON
_CAMBRIDGE
. :::. UNIVERSITY PRESS
cambridge university press
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Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521622172
© John Thornton 1992, 1998
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First edition published 1992
Second edition published 1998
19th printing 2011
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Thornton, John Kelly, 1949–
Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic world, 1400–1800.
– 2nd [expanded] ed.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic
world, 1400–1800. 1992.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
isbn 0-521-62217-4 – isbn 0-521-62724-9 (pbk.)
1. Africa – Relations – Europe. 2. Europe – Relations –Africa.
3. Africa – Relations – America. 4. America – Relations – Africa.
5. Slavery. 6. Europe – History – 1492–1648. I. Thornton, John
Kelly, 1949– Africa and Africans in the making of the Atlantic
world, 1400–1800. II. Title.
dt31.t516 1997
303.48´2604–dc21 97-39728
isbn 978-0-521-62217-2 Hardback
isbn 978-0-521-62724-5 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in
this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Preface to the second edition pagevii
Abbreviations ix
Maps x
Source notes for Maps 1-3 xv
Introduction 1
Part I Africans in Africa
1 The birth of an Atlantic world 13
2 The development of commerce between Europeans and
Africans 43
3 Slavery and African social structure 72
4 The process of enslavement and the slave trade 98
Part II Africans in the New World
5 Africans in colonial Atlantic societies 129
6 Africans and Afro-Americans in the Atlantic world: life
and labor 152
7 African cultural groups in the Atlantic world 183
8 Transformations of African culture in the Atlantic world 206
9 African religions and Christianity in the Atlantic world 235
10 Resistance, runaways, and rebels 272
11 Africans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world 304
Index 335
v
Preface to the second edition
When I began writing this book in 1984, I imagined that I would be
writing a fairly specialized work for scholars and a few interested
laypeople, as a way of advancing Africa into the Braudelian scheme of
Atlantic history that inspired me. In my vision, it was to be a reference
book for the non-Africanist historian and would be based on a virtually
complete reading of the primary sources. To that aim, it was originally to
offer coverage up to about 1650 (the limit within which I felt I could
handle the sources comprehensively) and would be mostly confined to
Africa, my area of expertise. In fact, the first draft of the book had only
one rather sketchy chapter on the American side of the exchange.
I was gradually persuaded that the book would be more useful if it
were more ambitious, and as it grew into the volume published in 1992, I
added a much larger and more carefully argued section on the Americas
in place of the original chapter. I also expanded the time frame to 1680,
mostly so that I could have a few meaningful things to say about early
colonial North America.
As I expanded the territorial and temporal boundaries of the book, I ,
also slowly and reluctantly recognized that I could never deal with the
primary sources comprehensively, especially for the American side of
the ocean. I still held on to the idea of mastering a large sample of the
primary sources as a goal, even on the American side, however. It was
for that reason that I put aside suggestions that the book would be better
if it extended up to about 1800, particularly because this would allow me
to cover much more about North America. Until I knew the primary
documentation better, I did not feel confident that I could achieve the
goals I originally set out.
I was surprised to see that the book was widely adopted as a textbook
rather than simply becoming a reference book for scholars as I had
expected. Many colleagues who used the book for teaching, however,
objected that its limited chronological focus did not give it full value as a
vii
viii Preface to the second edition
text, especially in U.S. history courses. While generally accepting my
contention that I did not feel I could master the extensive primary source
material for the eighteenth century, they encouraged me to consider
trying a chronological extension to enhance the value of the book as a
teaching text.
As I was considering these arguments, my research interests started to
focus more on the eighteenth century, and as I felt more comfortable
with this period, I decided that I could handle the demands of writing a
new chapter that would cover that century. The result is this new edi
tion. It adds a substantial new chapter on the eighteenth century to the
otherwise unchanged 1992 edition, in hopes that it will make the book
serve better as a general introduction to the role of Africans in the Atlan
tic world through the main years of the Atlantic slave trade. Just as the
final version of the 1992 edition fell short of my original goal of compre
hensive use of primary sources, so the final chapter in this edition falls
short of even the 1992 standards and relies much more on secondary
materials for important parts of the argument, while still making use of
some primary material where I have done additional research. I hope
this compromise will enhance the book's value as a reference work and
teaching tool.
