The Bitter Legacy

This collection explores the effects of memories of African slavery on political, social, economic, and religious behaviour today. The articles take a range of approaches: tackling the stigma of slave origins; investigating religious communion with slave ancestors; mining songs and children's stories for insights into the persistent memory of the continent's slave past; and examining the techniques used by descendants of slave traders and slave owners to overcome their guilt, such as worshipping the spirits of those enslaved by their ancestors.