Description: Exploring the multifaceted history of dispossession, consumption, and inequality in West Central Africa, Mariana P. Candido presents a bold revisionist history of Angola from the sixteenth century until the Berlin Conference of 1884-5. Synthesising disparate strands of scholarship, including the histories of slavery, land tenure, and gender in West Central Africa, Candido makes a significant contribution to ongoing historical debates. She demonstrates how ideas about dominion and land rights eventually came to inform the appropriation and enslavement of free people and their labour. By centring the experiences of West Central Africans, and especially African women, this book challenges dominant historical narratives, and shows that securing property was a gendered process. Drawing attention to how archives obscure African forms of knowledge and normalize conquest, Candido interrogates simplistic interpretations of ownership and pushes for the decolonization of African history.
Brief description: Mariana P. Candido is Associate Professor at Emory University and a specialist on West Central African history, 1500-1880. Her publications include An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World (2013), African Women in the Atlantic World (co-edited 2019), and Crossing Memories (co-edited 2011).
Review Quotes: 'This book breaks with decades-long traditions and preconceived ideas about African history and the concept of landed property in West Central Africa. Candido's approach, insights and poignant arguments will ignite profuse discussions and challenge common views regarding Africa and Africans. She is a unique historian and perhaps the most accomplished Africanist of the 21st century.' Cátia Antunes, Leiden University