Slavery and the Birth of an African City

As the slave trade entered its last, illegal phase in the 19th century, the town of Lagos on West Africa's Bight of Benin became one of the most important port cities north of the equator. Slavery and the Birth of an African City explores the reasons for Lagos's sudden rise to power. By linking the histories of international slave markets to those of the regional suppliers and slave traders, Kristin Mann shows how the African slave trade forever altered the destiny of the tiny kingdom of Lagos. This magisterial work uncovers the relationship between African slavery and the growth of one of Africa's most vibrant cities.

Kristin Mann is Professor of History at Emory University. She is author of Marrying Well: Marriage, Status, and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos and editor (with Edna G. Bay) of Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil.

"A sophisticated analysis ... Highly recommended." Choice "A valuable contribution not only to African history, but also to the history of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic... Brilliantly organized ... Mann's style makes the reading enjoyable." H-net / H-Atlantic "This story is told by the author with the skill of a masteromaster researcher, master analyst, master story-teller, and master essayist." African Studies Review "The author covers a lot of ground in this book, and she fills in an important gap in the historiography of Lagos. Through her careful use of a set of primary sources not often used by historians for this purpose, she has expanded the boundaries of the debate about slavery and dependency and has offered new details about the organization of business in nineteenth-century Lagos." Business History Review "It may not be possible to write a better social history of Lagosolet alone less fully documented African port cities; and, even if it is, future scholars will have to recognize Mann's book as a benchmark." African Affairs "Mann's work is an intellectually engaging, multifaceted, and tantalizingly in-depth study of slavery's gradual demise. She does an admirable job of offering fresh insights into the redefinition and re-arrangment of employer-worker relationships in Lagos County, especially in the last decade of the 19th century." American Historical Review "Kristin Mann has been stimulating us with fine articles on this subject for years... This is a major contribution to African history to slave studies, and to urban history." Martin Klein, author of Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa