From the galleons to the Highlands: slave trade routes in the Spanish Americas

Abstract

This long-anticipated collection sets the groundwork for the continuing re fi nement of the history of Africans and their descendants in the Atlantic World and more speci fi cally within the Spanish empire. The methodologies and analyses gathered in conversation in From the galleons to the Highlands o ff er a rich example of the power of collaborative historical networks. These authors tackle the historiographies of the Atlantic World, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the histories of speci fi c Spanish colonies in America. They skillfully traverse the breadth of Spanish America in time and space to o ff er a compelling framework for under-standing the detailed functioning of the slave trade and its reach into the varied histories of the Spanish colonies. This research highlights the crucial import of evidence-based demo-graphic projections emerging from the often-shifting patterns of trade networks, while sim-ultaneously arguing for the equally signi fi cant relevance of enslaved and free Africans ’ individual and collective experiences in the making of the Spanish colonial world. The volume ’ s successful balance between quantitative and qualitative analysis is unsurpris-ing given the expertise of the three editors and their long experience and commitment to building research tools that ground the study of the Slave Trades solidly in archival evidence. From the galleons to the Highlands reveals the complexity of patterns of the Slave Trade to Spanish America as well as the weight of Spanish involvement in the trade, and the crucial importance the Inter-American slave trade in shaping slave routes. The editors argue that greatest The revised numbers indicate the