John K. Thornton

This book describes the Christian religious movement led by Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita in the Kingdom of Kongo, from her birth in 1684 until her death, by burning at the stake, in 1706, only two years after the movement had started. Beatriz, a young woman, claimed to be possessed by Saint Anthony, argued that Jesus was a Kongolese, and criticized Italian Capuchin missionaries in her country for not supporting black saints. Thornton supplies background information on the Kingdom of Kongo, the development of Catholicism in Kongo since 1491, the nature and role of local warfare in the Atlantic slave trade, and contemporary everyday life, as well as sketching the lives of some local personalities.

"A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820 explores the idea that strong links exist in the histories of Africa, Europe and North and South America. John K. Thornton provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the Atlantic Basin before 1830 by describing political, social and cultural interactions between the continents' inhabitants. He traces the backgrounds of the populations on these three continental landmasses brought into contact by European navigation. Thornton then examines the political and social implications of the encounters, tracing the origins of a variety of Atlantic societies and showing how new ways of eating, drinking, speaking and worshipping developed in the newly created Atlantic World. This book uses close readings of original sources to produce new interpretations of its subject"--

331 readable pages of well organized, very well researched African History describing the complicated relationships amongst Angolan Kings, Queens and Lords; Congolese Christian Kings; Catholic Jesuits and Capuchins; and Portuguese slave traders for the period named in the Title. Co-winner of the 2008 Melville Herskovits Award for the Best Book Published in African Studies. Includes a comprehensive index and an appendix on Names of Africans Appearing in Early Colonial Records.

This book explores Africa's involvement in the Atlantic world from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. It focuses especially on the causes and consequences of the slave trade, in Africa, in Europe, and in the New World. Prior to 1680, Africa's economic and military strength enabled African elites to determine how trade with Europe developed. Thornton examines the dynamics which made slaves so necessary to European colonizers. This edition contains a new chapter extending the story into the eighteenth century.