Paths of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Interactions, Identities, and ...

examining the travels of these former slaves across the Atlantic, Castillo deepens scholarly understanding of Afro-Brazilian former slaves, the so-called returnees, some of whom crossed the ocean between Brazil and the Bight of Benin numerous times after gaining their freedom. As Castillo shows, exchanges between these two regions continued even after the Atlantic slave trade had stoppe

Mariana P. Candido’s chapter also focuses on the South Atlantic region. In “Trans-Atlantic Links: The Benguela-Bahia Connections, 1700–1850,” Candido sheds light on the commercial and human exchanges between the Brazilian slave port of Salvador in Bahia and Benguela, in West Central Africa. Indeed, historians and anthropologists enthralled by the Yoruba presence in Bahia have tended to privilege either the connections between Bahia and the Bight of Benin or those linking Rio de Janeiro to Luanda, usually neglecting the important early exchanges that occurred between Benguela and Bahia. In this groundbreaking chapter, Candido examines various primary sources that highlight the daily lives of men and women of the Benguela-Bahia South Atlantic communities. The study explores this almost unknown aspect of the slave trade in the South Atlantic, illuminating the ways enslaved Benguelas were integrated into Bahian society and how Bahians were assimilated into the community of Luso-Brazilian slave merchants in Benguela.

Moving westward, chapter 9, “Women Merchants and Slave Depots: Saint-Louis, Senegal, and St. Mary’s, Madagascar,” brings to light eighteenth-century Afro-Creole women traders, known as signares in Senegal and zany malatta in Madagascar. Despite their importance in the history and the memory of the Euro-African connections during the period of the Atlantic slave trade, few recent studies have devoted close attention to these women, sometimes perceived as in-betweens, sometimes as collaborators, and sometimes as symbols of Westernization, creolization, and amalgamation in West African and Indian Ocean slave ports. By marrying Europeans à la mode du pays, these women were able to strengthen their social and economic positions by creating a new social niche where they could be comfortable, reshaping African