Jennings, Lawrence C.

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

538 Histoire sociale / Social HistoryHistoire sociale – Social History, vol. XXXVIII, no 76 (novembre-November 2005)yer remains a somewhat more shadowy figure in the diary than Harrison the hus-band, father, and brother.Peter Oliver has provided a 120-page introduction that functions both as a biogra-phy of Harrison and as an overview of the major themes of the diary. He has alsoprovided biographical sketches of some of the figures most frequently encounteredin the diary, but has not annotated the text itself except for the very occasional foot-note. Some matters that are puzzling on a first read are clarified in the introduction,but others are not. At a minimum, some indication in the text of the diary as towhere in the introduction certain incidents are explained would have been useful. Imight have preferred a more intrusive style of annotation, but no doubt others willappreciate being able to read the diary “straight up”, without editorial meddling. Thehistorical profession — and, one hopes, some general readers — owe a debt of grat-itude to Harrison’s grand-daughter Barbara Goodfellow for labouriously transcrib-ing the diary over many years, to Peter Oliver for performing “radical surgery” tobring it to publication, and to the Osgoode Society and the University of TorontoPress for publishing this very handsome edition.Philip GirardDalhousie UniversityPÉTRÉ-GRENOUILLEAU, Olivier — Les traites négrières. Essai d’histoire globale.Paris, Gallimard, 2004, 468 p.During the 1980s the late Serge Daget, specialist on the nineteenth-century Frenchslave trade, once predicted that some day historians would finally succeed in synthe-sizing the impressive amount of research published on the history of the slave tradesince the 1960s. Canadian historian David Eltis, with the aid of associates, hasrecently accomplished an important element of this task by providing a detailed sta-tistical breakdown and analysis of the entire transatlantic slave trade and the shipsinvolved in it from the sixteenth century through the nineteenth century (DavidEltis, Steven Behrendt, David Richardson, and Herbert S. Klein, The Trans-AtlanticSlave Trade: A Database on CD-Rom, Cambridge University Press, 2000). NowOlivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, expert on the financing of the slave trade at the Univer-sité de Bretagne Sud in Lorient, has chosen to build upon this and other research togo one step further. Exploiting the rich historiography published on the slave tradeover the last 50 years — instead of primary sources of which this study is almostdevoid — Pétré-Grenouilleau has provided us with an overview of the world-wideslave trade throughout the ages. In skilfully reading and interpreting the vast com-pendium of publications on the slave trade, he has been able to produce a wide-rang-ing summary and analysis, replete with personal reflections, of the transatlantic,Muslim, and African slave trade from antiquity to the present.Pétré-Grenouilleau’s intent was to write a global and comparative history of theslave trade for both historians and the general reading public that would destroy “themyths and persistent legends” (p. 7) prevailing on the subject. He approaches thisHistoire sociale – Social History, vol. XXXVIII, no 76 (novembre-November 2005)Comptes rendus / Book Reviews 539task by dividing his book into sections that cover the development of slave trafficsince early times, the transatlantic slave trade, the abolitionist movement against thisscourge, and the Muslim slave trade. Still, one of the strong points of this work is themanner in which it makes comparisons between the different movements and tiesthem in with other historical developments. While pointing out that slavery existedin antiquity without a well-established slave traffic, the author shows that both theslave trade and its racist basis really began with the Muslims. However, it was themushrooming of the plantation system in the Western Hemisphere, especially for theproduction of sugar, that launched the transatlantic slave traffic by Europeans in thesixteenth century. Slaves were sought on the coast of Africa, where slavery wasalready an established institution and where an African organized network providedcaptives for export. Citing the most recent research, he points out that totals for thetransatlantic slave trade have not varied much from the estimates of Philip D. Curtinin the late 1960s (The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, University of WisconsinPress, 1969) to the detailed data presented by Eltis today. Some 11 million wereshipped from Africa to the Americas. In contrast, research by African historiansindicates that the Muslim trade to the north and east of Africa amounted to about 17million deportees, and that over 9 million slaves remained within Africa itself priorto 1850. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though, anti-slave trade move-ments were developing, especially in England, leading the way in abolishing thetraffic. Nevertheless, Pétré-Grenouilleau points out, in his excellent pages on thepast and current historical debate over abolitionism, the English model was uniqueand differed from those of other European nations. In the latter sections of the book,the author deals with the economic repercussions of the slave trade, the Muslimworld slave traffic, and the debate over the effects of slave trading upon Africa.Perhaps the key to Pétré-Grenouilleau’s success in providing an overall if generalsynthesis is his readiness to acknowledge — unlike many French scholars — theoverwhelming importance of anglophone scholarship for the history of the slave tradeand his ability to exploit adroitly studies published in English. Indeed, most of thescholarly works he cites are in the English language. Another strong point of Pétré-Grenouilleau’s book is the way in which he uses recent historiography to explode cur-rent myths and indicate future paths for research. He argues, for example, that schol-arship now indicates slaves played some role in liberating themselves, but that theimportance of this factor should not be exaggerated. Similarly, he points out that his-toriography has now identified relatively small profit margins for slave traders: about6 per cent for the French and 7 per cent for the British. Consequently, these indicators,combined with many other recent findings, prove that slave trade profits could nothave influenced to any meaningful extent the accumulation of European capital thatprovided stimulus for the British industrial revolution, as some ideologically inspiredslave trade historians have previously claimed. Moreover, he puts forth historicalfindings that show the demographic and developmental effects of the slave trade uponAfrica to be uncertain, and “far from the catastrophic scenarios sometimes depicted”(p. 382). In like manner, he argues that recent scholarship deflates the assertion thatAfrican domestic slavery was somehow more benevolent and less harsh than theWestern Hemisphere variety. This permits the author to repeat one of his underlining540 Histoire sociale / Social HistoryHistoire sociale – Social History, vol. XXXVIII, no 76 (novembre-November 2005)assumptions: that slavery was slavery no matter where it existed, a dreadful anddegrading system, equally unacceptable and inhuman wherever it might be. Finally,he concludes his study with the observation that Africans should not be depicted asthe pawns or dupes of European or Muslim slave traders and that recent scholarshipdemonstrates Africans were not just the victims of the slave trade, but among its lead-ing actors and participants. Here, as elsewhere, Pétré-Grenouilleau does not just sum-marize the historiography on the slave trade, but reflects upon it and helps the readerassimilate it.Throughout his study, the author presents issues, underlines their historical treat-ment, and especially indicates the questions that they raise. In this sense his workshould help stimulate further reflection and research upon the slave trade. OlivierPétré-Grenouilleau’s book is not only wide-ranging and well informed, but patentlyopen-minded, judiciously argued, and highly thought-provoking. In sum, he has pro-duced an excellent review essay or état présent of slave trade studies, and his bookis an invitation to understand these questions in all their complexity.Lawrence C. JenningsEmeritus, University of OttawaQUIRING, David M. — C.C.F. Colonialism in Northern Saskatchewan: Battling Par-ish Priests, Bootleggers, and Fur Sharks. Vancouver: University of BritishColumbia Press, 2004. Pp. xx, 356.In this book, David Quiring offers the first comprehensive appraisal of the initiativesthat Saskatchewan’s Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) governmentundertook in the northern half of that province between 1944 and 1964. Largelyignored by previous Saskatchewan governments, this region became an object of par-ticular concern for Premier T. C. Douglas and his CCF colleagues. They sought to fos-ter economic diversification in the north and to “modernize” the largely Aboriginalpopulation which lived there. The CCF also undertook new initiatives in education,health care, and social welfare. Central to these initiatives was a conviction that theHudson’s Bay Company’s presence in the north had been exploitative and that theRoman Catholic and Anglican Churches had played too large a role in the provisionof education and health care, areas that the CCF believed ought more properly tobelong to the state.To a greater extent than most jurisdictions during this postwar period, Quiringargues, the CCF government in Regina was determined to assimilate northernAboriginals into mainstream Canadian society. Also to a greater extent than else-where, it sought to create a socialist society in the north by establishing a myriad ofcrown corporations, marketing boards, and cooperatives. For the most part, this con-stituted a sharp break with the past, but in one respect, Quiring argues, little changedin northern Saskatchewan after 1944. The region had long been controlled by out-side forces (notably the Hudson’s Bay Company); under the CCF political and eco-

Pétré-Grenouilleau, Olivier — Les traites négrières. Essai d'histoire globale

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Pétré-Grenouilleau, Olivier — Les traites négrières. Essai d'histoire globale

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)