Slavery & Abolition: Special issue on “Africa’s Sons Under Arms”
Volume 39, Issue 3
August 2018

This issue of the journal Slavery & Abolition focuses on the theme “Africa’s Sons Under Arms,” exploring “various historical themes around the creation and deployment of armed units of men of African descent by European empires and their successor states” (451). The special issue grows from a two-day conference on “Armed people of African descent: Africa and the Americas, 1750–1900” held in 2017 at the University of Warwick, funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council.” 

Slavery & Abolition is the only journal devoted in its entirety to a discussion of the demographic, socio-economic, historical and psychological aspects of human bondage from the ancient period to the present. It is also concerned with the dismantling of the slave systems and with the legacy of slavery.

Table of Content

Introduction
David Lambert & Tim Lockley, “Introduction,” 451-458. 

Part 1: Arming in an Era of Slavery

• Gary Sellick, “Black skin, red coats: the Carolina corps and Nationalism in the revolutionary British Caribbean,” 459-478. 
• Manuel Barcia, “‘Weapons from their land’: arming strategies and practices among West African-born soldiers in early nineteenth-century Bahia and Cuba,” 479-496.
• Rosalyn Narayan, “‘Creating insurrections in the heart of our country:’ fear of the British West India Regiments in the Southern US Press, 1839–1860,“ 497-517.
• Sarah Davis Westwood, “Ceɗɗo, Sòfa, Tirailleur: slave status and military identity in nineteenth-century Senegambia,” 518-539.

Part 2: Arming in a Post-Slavery Context

• Elizabeth Cooper, “Playing against empire,” 540-557.
• Melissa Bennett, “‘Exhibits with real colour and interest’: representations of the West India Regiment at Atlantic World’s Fairs,” 558-578.
• Michelle Moyd, “‘From a hurt sense of honor’: violence work and the limits of soldierly obedience on a scientific expedition in German East Africa, 1896–1897,” 579-601.
• Anna Maguire, “‘I felt like a man’: West Indian troops under fire during the First World War,“ 602-621.