Distinguished Lecture Series welcomes Mariana Candido

Mariana Candido, Reexamining the “Marginal Institution”: the Role of Benguela in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

November 27, 2012 in Social Science Research 122 from 5-6:30 pm

The port of Benguela was a major outlet for the departure of slaves in the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yet, the historiography downplays the impact of the slave trade in West Central Africa and slavery has been understood as a “marginal institution.” This talk reexamined these points. It emphasized that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a story of the South Atlantic and that Benguela and its population played a major role in that trade. From the seventeenth century to the mid–nineteenth century, coastal and inland populations joined the Atlantic commerce, which had a profound effect on the subsequent history of the region and of West Central Africa as a whole. In discussing the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on African societies, Mariana P. Candido explored the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states and the emergence of new ones, and mechanisms of enslavement. Mariana P. Candido specializes in the history of West Central Africa during the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Her interests include the history of slavery; forced migration and labor; the South Atlantic world; and the African diaspora. She is the vice-chair of the Lusophone African Studies Organization and a network professor of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples. She is also co-investigator in the projects “The Angolan Roots of Capoeira,” University of Essex/UK, and the “Escravidão e Formas de Sociabilidade: Escravos africanos em Mariana/MG, 1700-1750,” Universidade Federal Fluminense/Brazil. Candido’s publications include Fronteras de Esclavización: Esclavitud, Comercio e Identidad en Benguela, 1780-1850 (Mexico: Colegio de Mexico Press, 2011); Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora, with Ana Lucia Araújo and Paul Lovejoy (Africa World Press, 2011); and articles in Slavery and Abolition, African Economic History, Portuguese Studies Review, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Cahiers des Anneux de la Mémoire, and Brésil (s). Sciences Humaines et Sociales.

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