Rebecca Shumway

Associate Professor, History

Degree(s)

PhD, History, Emory University, 2004
MA, History, Emory University, 1998
BA, History and African Studies, Northwestern University, 1995

Research Interests

History of Africa
Precolonial West Africa

Slavery and Slave Trade
State Formation and Cultural Identity

African Diaspora

Teaching Areas

Precolonial Africa
West Africa and the Slave Trade

Africa and Racism

Comparative Slavery

African Roots of American Culture

Selected Publications

Books
Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, ed. with Trevor Getz, (2017, Bloomsbury Academic Press)

The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, (2011, University of Rochester Press -Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora) - Finalist for the 2012 Herskovits Prize (African Studies Association)

Articles
“The Shared Legacy: Atlantic Dimensions of Gold Coast (Ghana) History in the Nineteenth Century,” Ghana Studies Journal 21 (2018), 41-62.
“From Atlantic Creoles to African Nationalists: Reflections on the Historiography of Nineteenth-Century Fanteland,” History in Africa: A Journal of Method 42 (2015), 139-164.
“Castle Slaves of the Eighteenth Century Gold Coast,” Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 35: 1 (2014), 84-98.
“The Fante Shrine of Nananom Mpow and the Atlantic Slave Trade in Southern Ghana,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 44:1 (2011), 27-44.

Book Chapters
“Exploiting British Ambivalence toward Africa: Fante Sovereignty in the Early 19th Century,” in Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a Revolutionary Age, 1760-1840, Kate Fullagar and Michael McDonnell, eds., (2018, Johns Hopkins University Press), 72-90.
“Anti-Slavery in Nineteenth Century Fanteland,” in Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, Rebecca Shumway and Trevor Getz, eds., (2017, Bloomsbury Academic Press), 85-104.
“Ghana and the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” in Slavery and its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, Rebecca Shumway and Trevor Getz, eds., (2017, Bloomsbury Academic Press), 29-45.
“Palavers and Treaty-Making in the British Acquisition of the Gold Coast Colony (West Africa),” in Empire by Treaty: Negotiating European Expansion, 1600-1900, Saliha Belmessous, ed., (2015, Oxford University Press), 161-185.

Other Publications
“Ghana,” with Jeremy Pool, in Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies (2015, Oxford University Press), http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/african-studies
“Slavery and the Slave Trade” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives, (2017, SAGE Publications), 1565-1567
“Pre-Colonial Political Systems,” in Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies (2013, Oxford University Press), http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/african-studies
“Abolition of the Slave Trade: Repercussions in Africa,” Islas: Official Publication of the Afro-Cuban Alliance, Inc. 2:8 (2007), 35-38
“Accra,” “Asante,” “Gold Coast,” “Interlopers,” “Kormantyn,” “Royal Africa Company,” and “Trade Forts” in Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage (2007, Greenwood Press)