Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830

This acclaimed history of Portuguese and Brazilian slaving in the southern Atlantic is now available in paperback. With extraordinary skill, Joseph C. Miller explores the complex relationships among the separate economies of Africa, Europe, and the South Atlantic that collectively supported the slave trade. He places the grim history of the trade itself within the context of the rise of merchant capitalism in the eighteenth century. Throughout, Miller illuminates the experiences of the slaves themselves, reconstructing what can be known of their sufferings at the hands of their buyers and sellers.