Slave Traffic in the Age of Abolition : Puerto Rico, West Africa, and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean, 1815-1859

Dorsey reconstructs the slave trade in Puerto Rico, devoting special attention to the maritime logistics of slave acquisitions--in particular the West African corridors and the nuances of inter-Caribbean assistance.  He examines the evidence for the true origins of  these slave populations and considers forces beyond European and American politics that influenced the flow of slaves. He explains the complex conditions of the Upper Guinea coast and illustrates the impact of social, political, and economic forces endemic to West African affairs on the Puerto Rican slave market.

Dorsey's meticulous pursuit of evidence unearths the routes and institutions that brought thousands of slaves from West Africa into the eastern Caribbean, turning them into "creoles" in official records. In a radical departure from present Puerto Rican historiography, he demonstrates that Puerto Rico was an active participant in the illegal slave traffic and exerted a great deal of control over numerous components of the acquisition process, without exclusive dependence on the larger slave-trading polities such as Cuba and Brazil.