Candido Term Paper African Slave Trade free essay sample

An African Slaving Port on the Atlantic, by Marina Candida The impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the people living in Angola during the seventeenth century onwards was monumental. The Portuguese presence in the Bengal harbor caused disorder, social strain, and sculptural transformation for the people specifically residing in Bengal.In the study An African Slaving port On the Atlantic, Marina Candida outlines the progression of Bengal starting from the primary Portuguese voyage In he seventeenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. She illustrates Bunglers inauspicious beginnings and their growth into one of the most important trading ports in the world, and soon after one of the largest slave trading ports. 1 The record of the Portuguese existence in Angola is explained in great detail, and Candida attempts to be as neutral as possible when speaking about delicate affairs.Her study on Bengal and its hinterland helps to secure the records of the Central Highlands of Ang ola according to their unique areas. We will write a custom essay sample on Candido Term Paper: African Slave Trade or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Her study on how the Bengal slave port affected the Atlantic world is a captivating, and also intelligently and well put-together read for those who want to know how colonialism took over Angoras ports. The book focuses on the port of Bengal, which had a populous city in Angola, Africa. Candida focuses on the trans-Atlantic slave trade which occurred in Bengal, instead of what she believed had been the more popular studied sites of African ports north of the equator.Her study is the first full-length history of Bengal and its hinterland to be written in English, as well as one of the first to not be written from the perspective of Portuguese colonial defense. Through her exploration of the Bunglers port history from the initial relationship established between the local population and the Portuguese beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, Candida shows how slave exports to Spanish America and copper exploitation were the driving forces in the early colonial era. She also stresses th e role of the local population in the Atlantic slave trade. By bringing together many elements of Bengal, such as the politics, population, cultural aspects, and the role of the Europeans, her conclusion of the study emphasizes the importance of bilateral connections in the South Atlantic in order to understand paradigms in Atlantic history beyond those based on a North Atlantic perspective. She Uses a variety Of different sources to outline her argument, and misses no small detail when delineating her study, from the first Bengal, to her reasons for writing on such a complex and unfamiliar topic, which she argues is vital for understanding the development of African seaports. For her research in regards to her study, Marina Candida considered colonial documents, reports, official letters, censuses, export data, parish records, official chronicles, and oral traditions collected by missionaries and anthropologists. The combination of written and oral history Candida presents paints a picture of the formation of the major highlands, and also reveals the darker history not repeated in oral tradition. 7 She dedicates part of her introduction to making the reader aware of the multiple documents in the native Unbend languages which she had to decipher, as well as many Ritter records which have strong opinions from the African viewpoint, instead of the abundant historic coloni al documents from the European perspective.She also makes a note of declaring that in regards to past records of Atlantic slaving ports, she believes that in her multiple debates with historiography she can reshape the typical European accounts of the slave trade, and bring in numerous new contributions to the table, such as those of the Bengal women, political strife, the impact of slave society in the colonial world, and many more. I believe Candida has incorporated her arioso primary and secondary sources fluently into her claims and draws on many sources which must have taken great amounts of time to translate and use.She attempts to set herself away from the classic studies done on African slavery and colonization, and rather than relying on ethnographic data from the early twentieth century, [she] uses contemporary evidence, such as parish records, slave registers, and colonial reports to explore how people in Bengal identified themselves. 8 Her insight, mixed with her vigorous research, makes her study emerge compelling and stronger than others, even f the reader has never read into Bengal slave history previously.The volume is written in chronological order, and covers over two-hundred years. It begins before the arrival of the Portuguese, when Angela was only known for their copper inland and had good relations with the neighboring populations. After giving an insightful background on Bengal before colonialism, Candida moves into the imposing Portuguese period, where the Portuguese begin to take advantage of the Bengal resources, and turned their harbor into one of the largest trans-Atlantic slave ports.As the book continues, Candida opens up about the political issues between the Ambulant people and the colonies settling within the hinterland. She describes trade networks, British and Portuguese laws, and allows for the largest portion of the book to describe the mechanics of the slave trade. The political reconfi guration after Bengal gained their independence is also greatly important to Candids study, as it reveals personal issues and how the inhabitants of Bengal and its hinterland reflected on their welfare, sociality, economy, and human rights. As she begins to wind her argument down, the reader gets a full reiteration of Candids main statements and her most imperative specifics. She concludes with her general argument, that the events of twentieth-century Angola (political reconstruction, independence and human rights) and can be seen as the a part of the transformations Bengal and its hinterlands faced beginning in the late sixteenth century, and the evolution after Portuguese colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In my own honest opinion, the book An African Slaving port and the Atlantic World: Bengal and its Hinterland, written by Marina P. Candida, was quite a difficult read. It had a textbook quality which made it very dry, although the amount of information she acquired for this study was both impressive and appealing. Her book offered me valuable information about a widespread topic from a minor perspective, which also made it more attainable. However, the facts listed almost one by one forced me to stop i n intervals in order to regain my concentration. With a serious, historically offensive topic such as his, keeping it exciting is something quite difficult, especially considering all of the proper facts and information being used to create a cohesive thesis. It was exceptionally well written, and I was heavily persuaded by Candida to believe that many of her views exceeded those from previous historians or recorders which she had mentioned, such as the previous pro-colonialist opinions. Her introduction and conclusions helpfully tied together the huge amounts of data being given, both by preparing me before the reading and by giving me a swift synopsis afterwards.Her study is fantastic for those who want to get a detailed look into the lives of popular slave ports during the rise of colonialism, and the evolution into independence, in Angola, Africa. I am glad read Candids study, and although I cannot say I would read it again, the information it provided me with makes me feel as though have a much stronger understanding of the tr ans-Atlantic slave trade, and Bengal as a whole.