This book shows how important the African role was in shaping the
Atlantic world that developed after the navigational breakthroughs of
the fifteenth century. The degree of African initiative displayed in
this period is stressed, both by African elites in dealing with the new
visitors and trading partners and, even by African slaves in the New
World. Evenly divided into sections on Africa and Africans in the New
World, this study stresses cultural and institutional backgrounds to
Africa and African slaves. Although the book is intended to help
Africanists understand how Africans fared in the Americas, its main
purpose is to give readers familiar with Afro-American history a fuller
and more dynamic vision of Africa, so they can see the African slave as
an African and not just as a laborer.