University of New Mexico Press From the Galleons to the Highlands: Slave Trade Routes in the Spanish Americas (Diálogos Series)

Review This volume will be a reference for scholars interested in empirical reassessments of slave trading and routes of passage to Spanish America. Many of these chapters will fit easily into a standard college curriculum.--Norah L. A. Gharala, Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical StudiesBeyond the implications for understanding Atlantic slavery, From the Galleons to the Highlands sets a model for reevaluating one of the central 'branches' of the transatlantic slave trade and establishes a precedent for further investigation of the intra-slave trade among the various other empires that drove this trafficking of humans.--William A. Morgan, H-LatAm[This book] is an important contribution to the growing literature on the Atlantic World. The contributors explore the labor and intellectual role of enslaved and free Africans in the organization of colonial towns and economies in the Spanish Empire.--Mariana P. Candido, author of An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its HinterlandAs the text more than adequately proves, much can be gained by including the experiences of colonial Spain within the larger transnational histories of the Atlantic slave trade. . . . This is an important book that will be of value to a variety of scholars and their students. Highly recommended.--J. Rankin, Choice Product Description The essays in this book demonstrate the importance of transatlantic and intra-American slave trafficking in the development of colonial Spanish America, highlighting the Spanish colonies' previously underestimated significance within the broader history of the slave trade. Spanish America received African captives not only directly via the transatlantic slave trade but also from slave markets in the Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, and Danish Americas, ultimately absorbing more enslaved Africans than any other imperial jurisdiction in the Americas except Brazil. The contributors focus on the histories of slave trafficking to, within, and across highly diverse regions of Spanish America throughout the entire colonial period, with themes ranging from the earliest known transatlantic slaving voyages during the sixteenth century to the evolution of antislavery efforts within the Spanish empire. Students and scholars will find the comprehensive study and analysis in From the Galleons to the Highlands invaluable in examining the study of the slave trade to colonial Spanish America. About the Author Alex Borucki is an associate professor of history at the University of California Irvine and the author of From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata (UNM Press).David Eltis is the Robert W. Woodruff Emeritus Professor of History at Emory University and the author of The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas.David Wheat is an associate professor of history at Michigan State University and the author of Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570-1640.