Enslaving Spirits
Book description
This volume deals with imported alcohol at Luanda and its hinterland, where it was heavily used to acquire captives for the Atlantic slave trade. Aside from highlighting the complexities of this singular economic component of Atlantic slaving, its focus on changing West -Central African alcohol consumption patterns through the importation…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Enslaving Spirits as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
By exploring the intertwined transatlantic trades of enslaved Africans and alcohol, Curto reveals how Latin American libations bested European stock in ways that altered the course of history.
West Africans’ taste for Brazilian cachaça (sugarcane brandy) dislodged Portuguese wine and liquor facilitating Brazilian merchants’ dominance in Western Africa and spawning a vibrant trade based out of Luanda. What impressed me most about this book was how Curto turned conventional wisdom on its head by demonstrating how a Latin American nation shaped trade and tastes across the globe.
Portuguese efforts to regain their privileged trading position by outlawing the sale of…
From David's list on alcohol in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In Enslaving Spirits José C. Curto relies on the Atlantic history approach to demonstrate how alcohol linked Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The book looks at the role of foreign alcoholic beverages in the slave trade from Luanda and its hinterland between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The author follows the trajectory of Portuguese wine and the Brazilian alcohol known as geribita in the acquisition of captives to meet the demand for enslaved labor in the Americas. The reader will also learn a great deal about indigenous alcoholic beverages, as well as how the introduction of foreign intoxicants changed…
From Vanessa's list on the slave trade from Angola.
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