The Routes of Slavery

History of African slave trade, 6th-20th century

Violently torn from their land and their loved ones, millions of them found themselves chained, crammed like animals into boats, forced to cross forests or deserts on foot in conditions so inhumane that probably half of them died. This terrible crime, which devastated sub-Saharan Africa, has taken on many faces over the centuries. Because its perpetrators and sponsors came from all walks of life: from Africa itself with the internal slave trade, from the various Muslim lands with the oriental slave trade, from Europe with the Atlantic slave trade.

To understand the scale and historical complexity of black slavery, we must therefore study its geography, which passes through very diverse routes. It is this synthesis that Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch presents to us here with rigor and pedagogy, far from any controversy. She draws on her immense knowledge as a historian of Africa, but also on the rich material gathered in a series of four films entitled Les Routes de l'esclavage , broadcast by the ARTE channel, of which she was the historical advisor, and in which the best international specialists intervene.

A book as fascinating as it is terrible, which reveals the workings of a criminal system on which our current world is largely built.