Ransoming, collateral, and protective captivity on the Upper Guinea Coast before 1650 : colonial continuities, contemporary echoes / Peter Mark
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Discovery
1663039984
URN
urn:nbn:de:gbv:3:2-107901
DOI
ISBN
ISSN
Autorin / Autor
Beiträger
Körperschaft
Erschienen
Halle/Saale : Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, 2018
Umfang
1 Online-Ressource (16 Seiten, 0,71 MB)
Ausgabevermerk
Sprache
eng
Anmerkungen
Literaturverzeichnis Seite 14-16
Inhaltliche Zusammenfassung
This paper investigates the origins of pawning in European-African interaction along the Upper Guinea Coast. Pawning in this context refers to the holding of human beings as security for debt or to ensure that treaty obligations be fulfilled. While pawning was an indigenous practice in Upper Guinea, it is proposed here that when the Portuguese arrived in West Africa, they were already familiar with systems of ransoming, especially of members of the nobility. The adoption of pawning and the associated practice of not enslaving members of social elites may be explained by the fact that these customs were already familiar to both the Portuguese and their West African hosts. Vestiges of these social institutions may be found well into the colonial period on the Upper Guinea Coast.
Schriftenreihe
Working papers ; No. 193 ppn:371276853