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Author Bennett, Herman L. (Herman Lee), 1964- author.

Title African kings and Black slaves : sovereignty and dispossession in the early modern Atlantic / Herman L. Bennett.

Publication Info. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019]

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Windsor, Main Library - Adult Department  306.362 BE    Check Shelf
Description 226 pages ; 24 cm.
Series The early modern Americas
Early modern Americas.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Liberalism -- Mythologies -- Law -- Authority -- Histories -- Trade.
Summary "As early as 1441, and well before other European countries encountered Africa, small Portuguese and Spanish trading vessels were plying the coast of West Africa, where they conducted business with African kingdoms that possessed significant territory and power. In the process, Iberians developed an understanding of Africa's political landscape in which they recognized specific sovereigns, plotted the extent and nature of their polities, and grouped subjects according to their ruler. In African Kings and Black Slaves, Herman L. Bennett mines the historical archives of Europe and Africa to reinterpret the first century of sustained African-European interaction. These encounters were not simple economic transactions. Rather, according to Bennett, they involved clashing understandings of diplomacy, sovereignty, and politics. Bennett unearths the ways in which Africa's kings required Iberian traders to participate in elaborate diplomatic rituals, establish treaties, and negotiate trade practices with autonomous territories. And he shows how Iberians based their interpretations of African sovereignty on medieval European political precepts grounded in Roman civil and canon law. In the eyes of Iberians, the extent to which Africa's polities conformed to these norms played a significant role in determining who was, and who was not, a sovereign people--a judgment that shaped who could legitimately be enslaved. Through an examination of early modern African-European encounters, African Kings and Black Slaves offers a reappraisal of the dominant depiction of these exchanges as being solely mediated through the slave trade and racial difference. By asking in what manner did Europeans and Africans configure sovereignty, polities, and subject status, Bennett offers a new depiction of the diasporic identities that had implications for slaves' experiences in the Americas"--Jacket
Local Subject Trafficking in enslaved persons -- Political aspects -- Atlantic Ocean Region -- History -- 15th century.
Subject Slave trade -- Political aspects -- Atlantic Ocean Region -- History -- 15th century.
Local Subject Trafficking in enslaved persons -- Political aspects -- Atlantic Ocean Region -- History -- 16th century.
Subject Africa, West -- Relations -- Portugal -- History -- 15th century.
Power (Social sciences) (OCoLC)fst01074219
Portugal -- Relations -- Africa, West -- History -- 15th century.
Power (Social sciences) -- Africa, West -- History -- 16th century.
Power (Social sciences) -- Africa, West -- History -- 15th century.
Portugal. (OCoLC)fst01208476
Power (Social sciences) -- Portugal -- History -- 16th century.
Atlantic Ocean Region. (OCoLC)fst01723575
West Africa. (OCoLC)fst01239521
Slave trade -- Political aspects -- Atlantic Ocean Region -- History -- 16th century.
Portugal -- Relations -- Africa, West -- History -- 16th century.
Power (Social sciences) -- Portugal -- History -- 15th century.
Africa, West -- Relations -- Portugal -- History -- 16th century.
Chronological Term 1400-1599
Subject International relations. (OCoLC)fst00977053
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Added Title Sovereignty and dispossession in the early modern Atlantic
ISBN 9780812250633 hardcover alkaline paper
081225063X hardcover alkaline paper
9780812295498
0812295498
9780812224627 (paperback)
0812224620 (paperback)
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