Through slavers’ ship logs, account books, and extensive research, Alain Anselin presents a methodical and thorough work on African resistance to slavery in Le Refus de l´esclavitude: Résistances africaines a la traite négrière [The Refusal of Slavery: African Resistances to the Black Slave Trade]. The author considers his book to be an homage to the refusal of slavery, which animated, on sea as well as on land, through three centuries, all the rebellions of tens of thousands African captives destined to slavery on American and Caribbean plantations.

With Le Refus de l´esclavitude (Editions Duboiris, 2009), Anselin offers a more complete picture of the slave trade and African slaves whose resistance led to frantic battles for their freedom, often preferring death to deportation. This re-reading of historical events helps us understand why the heroism of the Africans resisting slavery has been underplayed or hidden.

Alain Anselin teaches ancient Egyptian in the Department of Language Sciences at the University of the Antilles-Guyane. He is founder of Cahiers Caribéens d’Égyptologie [Caribbean Egyptology Notebooks] and is also an anthropologist.

 For full review (in French), see http://www.montraykreyol.org/spip.php?article3064