Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830

This volume is a history of Portuguese and Brazilian slaving in the southern Atlantic. The author explores the complex relationships among the separate economies of Africa, Europe, and the South Atlantic that collectively supported the slave trade. He places the grim history of the trade itself within the context of the rise of merchant capitalism in the eighteenth century. Throughout, the author illuminates the experiences of the slaves themselves, reconstructing what can be known of their sufferings at the hands of their buyers and sellers.