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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I will always be grateful to Gillian Berchowitz, Joseph Miller, and David Robinson for making it possible for me to embark on the adventure of writing this book and seeing it through to publication. Gillian shepherded me through the initial stages of the project with grace and aplomb, providing just the kind of responsiveness and patience that I needed. Her encouragement gave me the fortitude I needed to keep plowing on. When at last I entered the writing phase, Joe and Dave were stalwart readers and supporters, offering up all sorts of suggestions, options, and fruitful comments and questions. Together, these three editors and their commitment to the highest professional standards have energized and inspired me throughout.

Once again I must acknowledge York University’s Department of History for supporting and training me in precolonial African history at the doctoral level. My isolation as their first Africanist PhD candidate turned out in my favor as Leslie Howsam, Lynn MacKay, and Susan Foote invited me into their British history circle. I remember fondly our many discussion meetings and meals together. Paul Lovejoy has been an important support and role model all these years and a continuing inspiration as he led the founding and development of The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on Africa and Its Diasporas. Its international network of scholars stands now as a global treasure of historical inquiry.

In years leading up to this project, I was fortunate to participate in a number of conferences devoted to world history, which enabled me to see my work and interests from other angles and in much broader and longer-term frameworks. Thank you to the Global Economic History Network, London School of Economics, for organizing conferences on cotton textiles as a global industry in 2005. Many thanks as well to Beverly Lemire for including me on her panel for the XIV World Economic History Congress in 2006, and also to Joseph Inikori for inviting me to contribute to his panel at the XV World Economic History Congress in 2009. An especially stimulating conference held in Stirling, Scotland, in 2009, called “Rethinking Africa and the Atlantic World,” was where I first began to think deliberately about writing a book along the lines of this one. Thank you to the Department of History at University of Stirling for bringing together scholars of African and American Atlantic history. Another inspiring conference, organized by Robin Law, Suzanne Schwarz, and Silke Strickrodt, addressed the complex interrelationships of commercial agriculture and slavery in Africa (sixteenth to twentieth c.). I am indebted to all the organizers of these conferences and fellow participants for their commitment to world history.

At a crucial time when I was designing this project and preparing a proposal to the press, four special colleagues generously offered comments and support. My most sincere thanks to Ralph Austen, Pat Manning, Peter Mark, and Don Wright.

I gratefully acknowledge assistance my university has given me by providing funds and release time for carrying out this research. I thank the provost of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) for a research assignment awarded to me in the fall of 2012, and to the Kohler Fund, the International Programs Center, and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for providing international travel support. Thank you also to the Lloyd International Honors College at UNCG for a Chancellor’s Resident Fellowship and research stipend in 2013/14. A Faculty First grant from the provost at UNCG provided me with much-needed funding for travel and time spent in the United Kingdom in 2015 as I was completing my work in The National Archives and The London Metropolitan Archives.

A very deeply felt thank you goes to everyone involved with The National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for awarding me the Hurford Family Fellowship during the academic year 2014/15. I could never have written this book while also teaching, as it entailed intensely focused concentration day after day in preparing to write and then shaping the writing itself. This gift of uninterrupted time brought with it the most rewarding intellectual experience in my career. Compounding that very personal internal pleasure was the amiable company of my fellow fellows of the NHC class of 2014/15. Knowing we were all experiencing similar struggles was a relief, and our lunchtime conversations were a balm. I will forever be in awe of all of you.

Many people have made it possible for me to bring this project to a close. I praise especially the consistently courteous and efficient staff at The National Archives, United Kingdom, whose expertise made my work enjoyable over these years of visits. For visual images and permissions to publish them, I thank the following: Rogier Bédaux for the digital image of the Sanga cotton tunic and Ingeborg Eggink of the Nationaal Museum van Wereld Culturen, the Netherlands, for permission to publish it; Karin Guggeis, Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich, for her generosity and helpfulness with the image of their beautiful creole ivory horn; Tom Cohen and Joan Stahl of The Catholic University of America and Oliveira Lima Library for assistance with permission to publish images from Froger; staffs at The National Archives, United Kingdom, and The Massachusetts Historical Society for their efficient online permissions processes; Sally Welch, Ohio University Press, for her assistance with images in the public domain; Nancy Basmajian, managing editor of Ohio University Press, and copyeditor Brian Bowles, for their superb editing; and at UNCG, the incomparable Dan Smith, photography wizard, and Gaylor Callahan, interlibrary-loan librarian extraordinaire.

Long-standing colleagues and friends (with whom I now hope to spend more time!) have always been with me throughout this project. Apologies and affectionate thanks to Julia Fish, Françoise Grossen, Adrienne Middlebrooks, Ann O’Hear, Richard Rezac, Wendy Thomas, and Lisa Tolbert. Words are not sufficient to acknowledge Oded.

Finally, many years ago I had the great good fortune to spend a year as a Fulbright student at the University of Ife, Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University), and one of the highlights was being inducted into the Palm-wine Drinkerds’ Club. The many afternoons I spent with my fellow comrades drinking palm wine at the Uppermost Shrine were not just jovial occasions—I also got a taste of Nigerian Pidgin English and the creativity and wit it engenders. I thought of those times often as I wrote this book, remembering how wise it was for the club to flip the university’s motto “For Learning and Culture” to “For Culture and Learning” as a deliberate turn toward singing and storytelling in the face of Western education. I might not have become so deeply interested in African history were it not for the club. I am honored to be a fellow, and so to all my comrades worldwide I say, You Are Carried!