Unbroken Chains

Description

Slavery has ravaged African societies since at least 2,500 BCE, from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Most writing covers just one fraction of this history: the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yet Indian Ocean slavery was equally sizeable, and far longer-lived. Historians often neglect the continent’s internal practices, too—Ethiopian kingdoms enslaving conquered peoples; the Sokoto Caliphate capturing men and women on a scale matching the US plantations.

Overlooked stories of enslavement matter. In 1794, Congress authorised construction of the US Navy’s first six ships—to protect civilian vessels from North Africa’s Barbary corsairs, who raided as far as Britain and the Caribbean, enslaving hundreds of thousands of Europeans. And, since abolition of the trans-Atlantic trade, international focus on ‘modern’ slavery has left Africans enslaved as chattel today with few champions. The UN and African Union are too embarrassed to confront leaders still permitting this practice.

Unbroken Chains is the first full account of the bondage systems that have scarred African communities over the millennia. It is an illuminating, powerful read.

Reviews

‘Guilt over slavery and its inheritances rightly grips Europe and America. But this electrifying history of its brutality runs deeper and longer across Africa, still now, still hidden away. This erudite book is an eye-opening revelation and a transfixing read.’ — Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist

‘An immense, bold undertaking, placing the dominant trans-Atlantic narrative as one part of a jigsaw that stretches across five millennia and involves the enslavement and trade in humans within Africa itself and across multiple oceans.’ — Mary Harper, BBC Africa Editor, and author

‘Martin Plaut has combined his journalist’s eye with scholarship and depth of understanding of Africa to bring to life, through the words of the enslaved, a compelling analysis of the complexity and scale of African enslavement and its continuing impact on current African areas of conflict.’ — Mark Bowden, former UN Assistant Secretary General

‘A powerful narrative that reads like a thriller. Martin Plaut’s meticulous research provides a much-needed correction of the myths and misperceptions around a most sordid aspect of our common humanity.’ — Mukesh Kapila, author of Against a Tide of Evil

‘In masterly fashion, Unbroken Chains sweeps from the trans-Saharan slave trade through indigenous slavery in Ethiopia and Nigeria to the Indian Ocean trade and slavery today. A must-read for anyone interested in African enslavement.’ — Christopher Saunders, University of Cape Town

‘This important book covers the vast canvas of Africa’s enslaved peoples, underlining that the abomination of slavery was not confined to the trans-Atlantic trade.’ — Professor Sue Onslow, Visiting Professor, King’s College London

Author(s)

Martin Plaut, the BBC World Service's former Africa Editor, has published extensively on African affairs. An adviser to the Foreign Office and the US State Department, he is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.