ABSTRACT
The nineteenth-century history of West Africa was as instructive as it was disruptive in the trajectory of cultures and civilizations that populate the region as it is today known, having been concretely shaped by the abolition of the slave trade and a series of changes at the global level, and revolutionary changes at the local level. Scholars consider this period revolutionary, given the complex web of global and local developments of the time. On the whole, it was characterized as the outburst of the gathering clouds of events of the eighteenth century, particularly toward the tail-end of that period. By the turn of the nineteenth century, political power in West Africa had shifted from filial privileges to military skills and individual capacity. Contributing to this also was the abolition of the slave trade and the enthronement of the so-called legitimate trade, which, in no small measure, reformed the social fabric of society. All of these are examined in this chapter, illuminating the basics of the various developments and transitions that occurred during this period.
