Participant Info

First Name
Rebecca
Last Name
Shumway
Country
United States
State
WI Wisconsin
Affiliation
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Website URL
https://uwm.academia.edu/RebeccaShumway
Keywords
Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Atlantic World, slave trade, slavery, state formation, war, British Empire
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a historian of West Africa and the Atlantic World with a focus on coastal Ghana (Fante).  I received my PhD in History from Emory University in 2004 and have held the position of Assistant Professor of History at the College of Charleston, Minnesota State University Mankato and the University of Pittsburgh. My first book, “The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade” (Rochester 2011), was a finalist for the Herskovits Prize (the best book on Africa published in the previous year in the fields of History, Political Science, Art History, Anthropology and Literature).  I have articles published in the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Slavery and Abolition, and History in Africa.  I am co-editor with Trevor Getz of Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2017), and have published chapters in several edited volumes as well as Oxford Bibliographies–African Studies. I am currently working on a book about Fante political culture in the nineteenth century.

Recent Publications

Books

  1. Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, ed. with Trevor Getz, Bloomsbury Academic Press

 

  1. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, University of Rochester Press (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora), Finalist for the 2012 Herskovits Prize

 

Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

2018 (November). “Exploiting British Ambivalence toward Africa: Fante Sovereignty in the Early 19th Century,” chapter in Kate Fullagar and Michael McDonnell, eds., Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a Revolutionary Age, 1760-1840, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

  1. “Anti-Slavery in Nineteenth Century Fanteland,” chapter in Rebecca Shumway and Trevor Getz, eds., Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, Bloomsbury Academic Press, London, pp. 85-104
  2. “Ghana and the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” chapter in Rebecca Shumway and Trevor Getz, eds., Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, Bloomsbury Academic Press, London, pp. 29-45
  3. “From Atlantic Creoles to African Nationalists: Reflections on the Historiography of Nineteenth-Century Fanteland,” History in Africa: A Journal of Method 42: 139-164
  4. “Palavers and Treaty-Making in the British Acquisition of the Gold Coast Colony (West Africa),” chapter in Saliha Belmessous, ed., Empire by Treaty: Negotiating European Expansion, 1600-1900, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 161-185
  5. “Castle Slaves of the Eighteenth Century Gold Coast,” Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 35: 1, 84-98
  6. “The Fante Shrine of Nananom Mpow and the Atlantic Slave Trade in Southern Ghana,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 44:1, 27-44

 

Other Publications

  1. “Ghana,” with Jeremy Pool, in Thomas Spear, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/african-studies
  2. “Slavery and the Slave Trade” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, pp. 1565-1567
  3. “Pre-Colonial Political Systems,” in Thomas Spear, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/african-studies
  4. “Abolition of the Slave Trade: Repercussions in Africa,” Islas: Official Publication of the Afro-Cuban Alliance, Inc. 2, no. 8, pp. 35-38

 

Reviews

f.c. Carina Ray, Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana (Ohio University Press, 2015), in Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction

  1. Sandra E. Greene, Slave Owners of West Africa: Decision Making in the Age of Abolition (Indiana University Press, 2017), in African Studies Review, 272-73
  2. Klas Rönnbäck, Labour and Living Standards in Pre-Colonial West Africa: The case of the Gold Coast (New York: Routledge, 2016), in EH.Net Reviews (http://eh.net/book_reviews/labour-and-living-standards-in-pre-colonial-west-africa-the-case-of-the-gold-coast/)
  3. Gérard Chouin, Colbert et la Guinée: Le voyage en Guinée de Louis de Hally et Louis Ancelin de Gémozac (Sépia, 2011), in Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction, 41, 2, 179-81
  4. Laura Lee P. Huttenbach, The Boy Is Gone: Conversations with a Mau Mau General (Ohio University Press, 2015), in Post and Courier
  5. “New Directions in the Study of Slavery and Slave Trading,” review essay in African Studies Review, 58, 1, pp. 242-46
  6. Randy J. Sparks, Where the Negroes are Masters (Harvard University Press, 2014), in William and Mary Quarterly 71, 3, pp. 479-83
  7. James Walvin, The Zong: The Massacred, the Law and the End of Slavery (Yale University Press, 2011), in History: The Journal of the Historical Association 99, 334, pp. 184-186
  8. Pierluigi Valsecchi, Power and State Formation in West Africa: Appolonia from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), in Journal of African History 54, 3, 456
  9. Robin Law, ed., Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: The Journals and Correspondence of Vice-Consul Louis Fraser 1851-1852 (Oxford University Press, 2012), in International Journal of African Historical Studies 46, 2, 341-42
  10. Toby Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (Cambridge, 2012), in Journal of World History 24, 3, 729
  11. William H. Worger, Nancy L. Clark and Edward A. Alpers, Africa and the West: A Documentary History, in H-Net Reviews, (https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=30970)
  12. Gracia Clark, African Market Women:Seven Life Stories from Ghana, in International Journal of African Historical Studies 43, 1, pp. 395-97
  13. Jack Turner, Spice: The History of a Temptation, in Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction, XXIX.3, pp. 140-42
Media Coverage
Country Focus
Ghana
Expertise by Geography
Africa, Atlantic
Expertise by Chronology
18th century, 19th century, Early Modern
Expertise by Topic
American Founding Era, Economic History, Indigenous Peoples, Military, Race, Slavery