Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic, 1770-1965: A Brief History with Documents

Africans' influence in the Atlantic world before 1960 was not confined to their roles as victims in the one-way forced migration of the Atlantic slave trade and their labor on New World plantations. From the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, black people in the divided communities of the four Atlantic continents struggled to overcome geographical and cultural separations and build a broad coalition against discrimination and exploitation. David Northrup offers a collection of primary sources that presents the social, political, and intellectual interactions of black people around the Atlantic in their quests for advancement, liberation, and emancipation. His thoughtful introduction explores the themes woven through the history of the black Atlantic, in particular black people's search for security and self-fulfillment and their effort to find their place in a common humanity. Document headnotes, a chronology of key events, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.

DAVID NORTHRUP (Ph.D, University of California, Los Angels) is professor of history at Boston College, where he teaches courses on the history of sub-Saharan Africa, international migrations, and world history. His research has dealt with pre-colonial Nigeria, early colonial Congo, the Atlantic slave trade, Asian and African indentured labor migration, and African encounters with Europe in the pre-colonial era. His publications include Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850 (2002), The Atlantic Slave Trade (2002), and Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834-1922 (1995). Professor Northrup served as president of the World History Association in 2004-2005.