Traders in Men cover art

Traders in Men

Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

A sweeping new history that reveals how British, African, and American merchants developed the transatlantic slave trade

During the eighteenth century, Britain's slave trade exploded in size. Formerly a small and geographically constricted business, the trade had, by the eve of the American Revolution, grown into a transatlantic system through which fifty thousand men, women, and children were enslaved every year.

In this wide-ranging history, Nicholas Radburn explains how thousands of merchants collectively transformed the slave trade by devising highly efficient but violent new business methods. African brokers developed commercial infrastructure that facilitated the enslavement and sale of millions of people. Britons invented shipping methods that quelled enslaved people's constant resistance on the Middle Passage. And American slave traders formulated brutal techniques through which shiploads of people could be quickly sold to colonial buyers. Truly Atlantic-wide in its vision, this study shows how the slave trade dragged millions of people into its terrible vortex and became one of the most important phenomena in world history.

©2023 Nicholas Radburn (P)2023 Tantor 18th Century Europe Great Britain Modern Africa
All stars
Most relevant
The book itself read like a voyage, taking the reader through time and place, across cultures and period, providing an insight into the vast business of trading in people.

In depth analysis of the multi faceted nature of the transatlantic trade of African people.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.