Way of Death

Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830

Joseph Calder Miller

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 1997
• Print ISBN:
  9780299115647
  9780299115609
• eBook ISBN:
  9780299115630
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This acclaimed history of Portuguese and Brazilian slaving in the southern Atlantic is now available in paperback.

With extraordinary skill, Joseph C. Miller 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, Miller illuminates the experiences of the slaves themselves, reconstructing what can be known of their sufferings at the hands of their buyers and sellers.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Maps
• Tables and Figures
• Translation of a Slave Inventory
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations Used in Notes
• Part 1. Africa: Births and Deaths
• Part 2. Traders: On the Way
• Part 3. Brazil: The Last Stop
• Part 4. Portugal: Merchants of Death
• Part 5. Conclusion
• Appendix A: Comparative Estimates of Basic Labor Rations
• Appendix B: Estimate of Mortality among Slaves Awaiting Sale in the New World
• Appendix C: Principal Authors of Documentation Cited
• Glossary of Foreign Terms Used in the Text
• Glossary of Portuguese Terms Used in the Notes
• Works Cited
• Index