Introduction: Slavery, Social Revolutions and Enduring Memories

Slavery played an important role in the economies of most historically documented African states of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This introductory chapter considers the regionality and relative antiquity of various forms of enslavement on the African continent, as well as a range of emergent archaeological studies on the subject. Further, the lingering impacts of slave economies and the memories of enslavement are critically assessed, including consideration of recent efforts to document and memorialise both the tangible and intangible heritage of slavery on the continent. The contributions to the present volume are situated within these issues with the aim of drawing out commonalities between chapters and emphasising the value of an interregional comparative approach.