Includes bibliographical references (p. [449]-465) and index.

Pawnship in historical perspective / by Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy -- The business of slaving : pawnship in Western Africa, c. 1600-1810 / by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson -- On pawning and enslavement for debt in the precolonial Slave Coast / by Robin Law -- "Pawns will live when slaves is apt to dye" : credit, risk and trust at old Calabar in the era of the slave trade / by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson -- Pawnship in Nembe, Niger Delta / by Ebiegberi J. Alagoa and Atei M. Okorobia -- Slavery and pawnship in the Yoruba economy of the nineteenth century / by Toyin Falola -- Pawning in the Emirate of Ilorin / by Ann O'Hear -- Pawnship in Igbo society / by Felix Ekechi -- Human pawning in Asante, 1820-1950 : markets and coercion, gender and cocoa / by Gareth Austin -- Pawnship in Edo society : from Benin Kingdom to Benin Province under colonial rule / by Uyilawa Usuanlele -- Pawning and slavery on the Kenya coast : the Miji Kenda case / by Fred Morton -- Pawning, politics and matriliny in Northeastern Tanzania / by James Giblin -- Pawning in coastal Northwest Sierra Leone, 1870-1910 / by Allen M. Howard -- Indirect rule and the brief apogee of pawnship in Nimba, Liberia, 1918-30 / by Martin Ford -- Pawns, porters, and petty traders : women in the transition to cash-crop agriculture in colonial Ghana / by Beverly Grier -- Iwofa : an historical survey of the Yoruba institution of indenture / by E. Adeniyi Oroge -- Pawns and politics : the pawnship debate in Western Nigeria / by Judith Byfield -- Pawnship in colonial Southwestern Nigeria / by Toyin Falola -- The resurgence of pawning in French West Africa during the depression of the 1930s / by Martin Klein and Richard Roberts -- "What is and what is not the law" : imprisonment for debt and the institution of pawnship in the Gold Coast / by Kwabena Akurang-Parry.