The diaspora of Africans liberated from slave ships in the nineteenth century

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Periodical article

Title:	The diaspora of Africans liberated from slave ships in the nineteenth century
Editor:	Domingues da Silva, Daniel
Year:	2014
Periodical:	The Journal of African History (ISSN 0021-8537)
Volume:	55
Issue:	3
Pages:	347-369
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Africa America Sierra Leone
Subjects:	diasporas freedmen abolition of slavery labour
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853714000371
Abstract:	This article uses the extensive documentation of Africans liberated from slave vessels to explore issues of identity and freedom in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. It tracks the size, origin, and movement of the Liberated African diaspora, offers a preliminary analysis of the 'disposal' of African recaptives in societies on both sides of the Atlantic, and assesses the opportunities Liberated Africans had in shaping their post-disembarkation experiences. While nearly all Liberated Africans were pulled at least partly into the Atlantic wage economy, the article concludes that recaptive communities in Freetown and its hinterland most closely met the aspirations of the Liberated Africans themselves while the fate of recaptives settled in the Americas paralleled those who were enslaved. App., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]