Slavery, Resistance, and Identity in Early Modern West Africa

Exploring the complexities of identity in precolonial West Africa, Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré shows the Soninke community's resistance to the slave trades led to the formation of a united community bound by an awareness of ethnic belonging. Traoré highlights the varied ways in which West Africans crafted and negotiated their identities.

Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré is Assistant Professor at Pomona College and an African scholar whose research primarily focuses on the history of the Trans-Saharan and Transatlantic slave trades. He was awarded the 2022 Andrew Mellon New Directions Fellowship. With this fellowship, Traoré endeavors to shine a light on the unheard voices of African Egyptologists with the publication of a textbook featuring African perspectives on Egyptology.