Abolition And Politics Of Repression Of The Slave Trade In Senegambia

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Maritime Archaeology in West Africa", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The subject of my communication concerns the policy of repression of the illicit slave trade on the Senegambian seaboard. After three centuries of practice of a commercial activity based on the slave economy, the nineteenth century promises to be very complicated for the actors of the so-called Atlantic trade because of the major reforms initiated to put an end to the slave trade. Under the initiative of the British, the Treaty of Vienna 1815 definitively put an end to the slave trade and considered the activity as an illicit and repressive practice. Despite its prohibition, the practice persisted and thus led to the establishment of a security system called "the station of Africa" composed mainly of cruise ships whose mission was to repress trafficking on the African coasts, a difficult undertaking to implement in the face of European shipowners and African elites determined to continue this lucrative trade.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Maritime Archaeology in West Africa

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow