In Biography and the Black Atlantic, leading historians in the field
of Atlantic studies examine the biographies and autobiographies of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African-descended people and reflect
on the opportunities and limitations these life stories present to
studies of slavery and the African diaspora. The essays remind us that
historical developments like slavery and empire-building were mostly
experienced and shaped by men and women outside of the elite political,
economic, and military groups to which historians often turn as sources.
Despite the scarcity of written records and other methodological
challenges, the contributors to Biography and the Black Atlantic have
pieced together vivid glimpses into lives of remarkable, through
previously unknown, enslaved and formerly enslaved people who moved,
struggled, and endured in different parts of Africa, the Americas, and
Europe. From the woman of Fulani origin who made her way from
Revolutionary Haiti to Louisiana to the free black American who sailed
for Liberia and the former slave from Brazil who became a major slave
trader in Angola, these stories render the Atlantic world as a densely
and sometimes unpredictably interconnected sphere. Biography and the
Black Atlantic demonstrates the power of individual stories to
illuminate history: though the life histories recounted here often
involved extraordinary achievement and survival against the odds, they
also portray the struggle for self-determination and community in the
midst of alienation that lies at the heart of the modern condition.
Contributors: James T. Campbell, Vincent Carretta, Roquinaldo
Ferreira, Jean-Michel Hébrard, Martin Klein, Lloyd S. Kramer, Sheryl
Kroen, Jane Landers, Lisa A. Lindsay, Joseph C. Miller, Cassandra Pybus,
João José Reis, Rebecca J. Scott, Jon Sensbach, John Wood Sweet.
