Includes bibliographical references (pages 812-862) and index.
pt. 1. Green Sea of Darkness: What heart could be so hard? -- Humanity is divided into two -- The slaves who find the gold are all black -- The Portuguese served for setting dogs to spring the game -- I herded them as if they had been cattle -- The best and strongest slaves available -- For the love of God, give us a pair of slave women -- The white men arrived in ships with wings -- pt. 2. The Internationalization of the Trade: A good correspondence with the blacks -- The black slave is the basis of the hacienda -- Lawful to set to sea -- He who knows how to supple the slaves will share his wealth -- pt. 3. Apogee: No nation has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Great Britain -- By the grace of God -- pt. 4. The Crossing: A filthy voyage -- Great pleasure from our wine -- Slave harbors I -- Slave harbors II -- A great strait for slaves -- The blackest sort with short curled hair -- If you want to learn how to pray, go to sea -- God knows what we shall do with those that remain -- pt. 5. Abolition: Above all a good soul -- The loudest yelps for liberty -- The gauntlet had been thrown down -- Men in Africa of as fine feeling as ourselves -- Why should we see Great Britain getting all the slave trade? -- pt. 6. The Illegal Era: I see ... we have not yet begun the golden age -- The slaver is more criminal than the assassin -- Only the poor speak ill of the slave trade -- Active exertions -- Slave harbors of the nineteenth century -- Sharks are the invariable outriders of all slave ships -- Can we resist the torrent? I think not -- They all eagerly desire it, protect it and almost sanctify it -- Cuba, the forward sentinel -- Epilogue: The slave trade: a reflection -- Appendix 1: Some who lived to tell the tale -- Appendix 2: The trial of Pedro José de Zulueta in London for trading in slaves -- Appendix 3: Estimated statistics -- Appendix 4: Selected prices of slaves 1440-1870 -- Appendix 5: The voyage of the Enterprize.
After many years of research, award-winning historian Hugh Thomas portrays, in a balanced account, the complete history of the slave trade. Beginning with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, he describes and analyzes the rise of one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures in all of history. Between 1492 and 1870, approximately eleven million black slaves were carried from Africa to the Americas to work on plantations, in mines, or as servants in houses. The Slave Trade is alive with villains and heroes and illuminated by eyewitness accounts. Hugh Thomas's achievement is not only to present a compelling history of the time but to answer as well such controversial questions as who the traders were, the extent of the profits, and why so many African rulers and peoples willingly collaborated. Thomas also movingly describes such accounts as are available from the slaves themselves. -- Back cover.
0684810638 9780684810638 0684835657 9780684835655
The slave trade : the story of the Atlantic slave trade, 1440-1870 /
97017234
Geschichte 1440-1870 Geschichte 1440-1870.
Slave trade--History. African Americans--History.--United States Slave-trade--United States.