Call for Papers: Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 07/00

Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora

Conference to hosted by His Excellency, Governor Chimaroke Nnamini, Enugu State, Nigeria at the Nike Lake Resort, Enugu, Nigeria, July 10-14, 2000

The Bight of Biafra was one of the most important sources of enslaved Africans sent to the Americas in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Indeed, the forced transport of considerable numbers of Igbo-speaking slaves and others from the interior of the Bight of Biafra across the Atlantic was a central development in the emergence of relatively cohesive ethnic groups in the African diaspora. Igbo, "Moko", "Bibi" and other ethnic groups have been identified in many parts of the Americas, most especially in Jamaica, the tidewater areas of Maryland and Virginia, and other anglophone colonies. Nonetheless, little research has been undertaken to explore the cultural and historical continuities and disjunctures in this population displacement. Moreover the repercussions of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the interior of the Bight of Biafra during the period of heaviest population displacement in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries remain poorly understood. The aim of this conference is to explore the repercussions of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on both the Biafran interior and on the diaspora, especially the emergence of ethnic identities, both in diaspora and in the Biafran hinterland. The conference will explore religious, cultural, linguistic, and social factors associated with the slave trade, including the rise of the Aro commercial and religious network, the role of slavery in the interior of the Bight of Biafra, the social and economic structure of the coastal ports, adjustments after the abolition of the slave trade, and the responses of enslaved individuals to conditions of slavery, both in the Biafran interior and in the Americas.

Scholars are invited to participate in this conference and interested individuals should submit titles of their proposed papers, together with an abstract of 1-2 paragraphs, to Professor Carolyn Brown, Department of History, Rutgers University (cbrown@panix.com), or to Professor Paul E. Lovejoy, Department of History, York University (plovejoy@yorku.ca). The Deadline for U.S. submissions is February 28, 2000.

Sponsors:

UNESCO/SSHRCC Nigerian Hinterland Project, York University,

Canada Department of History and African Studies Center,

Rutgers University Dean of the Graduate School,

Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers, University

History Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria

The Enugu Historical Documentation Bureau

Center for Oriental Studies, Berlin

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Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 From: Carolyn A. Brown, Rutgers University <cbrown@panix.com>