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African Voices from the Inquisition, Vol. 1: The Trial of Crispina Peres of Cacheu, Guinea-Bissau (1646-1668)

This book contains some of the richest written material in existence for precolonial West Africa with unique insights into daily life in an Afro-Atlantic coastal trade settlement. Presenting the ... More

This book contains some of the richest written material in existence for precolonial West Africa with unique insights into daily life in an Afro-Atlantic coastal trade settlement. Presenting the complete translated and annotated text of the Inquisition trial of Crispina Peres, an African woman born in the Guinea-Bissau region, of a Portuguese father and an African mother, it documents the Portuguese Inquisition's religious persecution of Africans on African soil. Set in a slave port in 17th century West Africa, the trial focuses on the worldview of an African woman accused of engaging in African rites and witchcraft, who is imprisoned and brought before Inquisitioners in Lisbon. It highlights her resourcefulness, resilience and spirited defence of her innocence, providing precious details on her life, household, work, health and social and commercial networks in this understudied African region.Less

Business and Family in the North of England During the Early Industrial Revolution: Records of the Lives of Men and Women in Trade, 1788-1832

Hannah Barker and David Hughes (eds)

This volume of transcribed and annotated primary sources focuses on the lives of tradesmen and women in the northern ‘industrial’ and commercial towns of Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool ... More

This volume of transcribed and annotated primary sources focuses on the lives of tradesmen and women in the northern ‘industrial’ and commercial towns of Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool between 1780 and 1832. It incorporates the correspondence of the Wilson family of Sheffield snuff manufacturers (1780-95); the memoir of a Liverpool baker, John Coleman (1797); the diary of George Heywood, a Manchester grocer (1809-15); and the letterbook of the Leeds milliner, Robert Ayrey (1832). Each of the four sets of primary materials contained in the book offers detailed insights into the domestic, familial, ‘personal’ and spiritual lives of their authors and their friends and relations, as well as shedding light on their business dealings and links with the wider communities in which they lived. It is unusual to find such intimate material from relatively modest middling men and women of this period extant, and the survival and publication of these documents provides us with rare vistas onto their experiences, expectations and anxieties. Although different in form, the sources in this volume fit together well due to their shared themes of business and family life, and their subjects’ broadly similar social status and urban settings. Moreover, the volume relates to a variety of current historical concerns including gender, domesticity, marital relations, women’s work and property, the family, urban society and business.Less

The Colonial Occupation of Katanga: The Personal Correspondence of Clément Brasseur, 1893-1897

Giacomo Macola (ed.)

The Colonial Occupation of Katanga consists of a translated and richly annotated edition of the personal correspondence of Lieutenant (later Captain) Clément Brasseur, the military officer in charge ... More

The Colonial Occupation of Katanga consists of a translated and richly annotated edition of the personal correspondence of Lieutenant (later Captain) Clément Brasseur, the military officer in charge of Lofoi, the first post of the Congo Free State in Katanga, between September 1893, the month of his arrival in the region, and November 1897, when his violent life came to a violent end. All of the letters included in the volume are addressed to Brasseur’s elder brother, Désiré, a fellow military officer; most of them take the form of regularly updated journals and travelogues. Brasseur’s dense correspondence describes in exceptional detail both his day-to-day activities in Lofoi and the numerous military operations that he and his local allies, the Yeke of Mukanda Bantu, undertook with a view to impressing upon Katangese communities the need to comply with instructions relating to taxation in kind and labour. The striking candidness of the records presented in this edition challenges top-down understandings of the violent workings of the Congo Free State, casts unprecedented light on early colonial state-building in Katanga and shows that the latter process was deeply informed by African strategies and interests.Less

England's Revelry: A History of Popular Sports and Pastimes, 1660-1830

Emma Griffin

This study looks at the relationship between popular recreations and the spaces in which they took place, and in doing so it provides a history of how England enjoyed itself during the long ... More

This study looks at the relationship between popular recreations and the spaces in which they took place, and in doing so it provides a history of how England enjoyed itself during the long eighteenth century. Because the poor lacked land of their own, public spaces were needed for their sports and pastimes. Such recreations included: parish wakes and feasts; civic fairs and celebrations; football, cricket and other athletic sports; bull- and bear-baiting; and the annual celebrations of Shrove Tuesday and Guy Fawkes. Three case studies form the core of this book, each looking at the recreations and spaces to be found in different types of settlement: first, the streets and squares of provincial market towns; then the diverse vacant spaces to be found in industrialising towns and villages of the west Midlands and West Riding of Yorkshire; and finally the village greens of rural England. Through a detailed examination of contemporary books, diaries and newspapers, and records in over forty archives, the book addresses the questions of what spaces were used, and what was the interaction with those who used and controlled the land. The Industrial Revolution has been seen to have had a negative impact on popular recreation; through its use of the concept of space, this book provides an alternative to this traditional view.Less