Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast,1400-1900 (Social History of Africa Series) [Paperback]

Walter Hawthorne (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0325070490 | ISBN-13: 978-0325070490 | Publication Date: October 30, 2003

Hawthorne reevaluates long-held notions about the Atlantic slave trade's impact on a number of "stateless" - or decentralized - societies in Africa's Guinea-Bissau region. He shows that decentralized societies were by no means passive victims of the slave trade, as commonly depicted in the literature, but vigorously defended themselves from the incursions of the raiders.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is one of the best studies we have on the way a single society coped with the challenges that the Atlantic slave trade posed for all West African societies. It forces us to rethink the way stateless people adapted to the threat that slaving posed and it challenges the idea that African societies can be neatly divided into the raiders and the raided.”–Martin A. Klein Professor Emeritus, Department of History University of Toronto

“Hawthorne has written a seminal contribution to the precolonial history of the Upper Guinea Coast. This book masterfully combines the author's impressive knowledge of Balanta culture and oral sources, with meticulous study of early Portuguese written records. It will long serve as the definitive study of Balanta history. In addition, this book is a major contribution to the theoretical knowledge of how small scale decentralized societies on the Upper Guinea Coast responded to, and survived, the development of the Atlantic slave trade.”–Peter Mark Author of 'Portuguese' Style and Luso-African Identity; Precolonial Senegambia, 16th-19th Centuries

About the Author

Walter Hawthorne is Assistant Professor of History at Ohio University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann (October 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0325070490
• ISBN-13: 978-0325070490
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,298,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > History > Africa > Guinea Bissau
  • #19 in Books > History > Africa > Guinea

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new look at the slave trade, April 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea-Bissau Coast,1400-1900 (Social History of Africa Series) (Paperback)

Employing evidence from African oral traditions and European archival sources, this book looks at the slave trade in and from Africa in a new and unique way. Casting an eye toward the continent's decentralized societies, and most especially at the Balanta of the Upper Guinea Coast, Hawthorne demonstrates that those living outside states were not mere victims of enslavement and often found ways to produce slaves themselves. The book also challenges our view of precolonial women's history by arguing that in some places African men's work increased as a result of women being exported into the Atlantic. In the Balanta case, as the society turned to paddy rice production in the eighteenth century, young men assumed a much more central role in agricultural production. The book is mandatory reading from anyone interested in environmental, agricultural, gender, African or slave studies. It is well written and argued and might be considered alongside of the works of Walter Rodney, John Thornton, Joseph Miller, Martin Klein, Richard Roberts, and Paul Lovejoy.