CRASSH | 18th Century Africa, 10 June 2021

This workshop took place on 10 & 11 June and 17 &18 June 2021.

What did the eighteenth century look like, smell like, sound like? And how different would those answers have been for different parts of the world? Historians and theorists of globalization have both identified a convergence of social, cultural, and political forms in the modern period. But how different would people have really found each other in the eighteenth century?

Convened by Bronwen Everill

Please note that due to consent not all papers are featured in the recording.

Panel 1: Europeans at the Edge

Allegra Ayida (Cambridge): 'Reading African Agency in an 18th century French Trader’s Memoirs'

Christopher Brown (Columbia): 'War and Trade on the West African Coast'

Johan Fourie (Stellenbosch) and Frank Garmon Jr. (Christopher Newport University): 'The Settlers’ Fortunes: Comparing Tax Censuses in the Cape Colony and Early American Republic'

Rafael Thiebaut (Musée du Quai Branly/Sciences Po Reims): 'Intermediaries in the European Slave Trade to Madagascar during the Eighteenth Century'

Panel 2: War

Lindsay O’Neill (University of Southern California): 'Maputo to Jamaica to London and Back'

Paul Grant (University of Wisconsin): 'Soldiers Dream of Home, Officers of Glory: Clan and King in the 18th Century Akan Moral Imagination'

Kenosi Molato (South African Theological Seminary): 'The 18th Century’s Scramble for the Okovango Delta: An Autochthonous Framework'