Richard L Roberts

Biographic Data

ID185165
NAMERichard L Roberts
GIVEN NAMESRichard L
FAMILY NAMERoberts
SIGNATUREROBERTS R L
AFFILIATIONSSchool for Field Studies
ORCID0000-0002-7191-5836
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS24
TOTAL CITATIONS221
AUTHOR COUNT22
EDITOR COUNT2
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1980
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX6

  • The Senegal Liberations Project

    Richard L Roberts, Fatoumata Seck et al.ARTICLEJournal of West African History2025

    What can the stories of enslaved individuals who actively sought their freedom in colonial Senegal reveal about global histories of freedom and unfreedom in the modern age? How can the analysis of primary documents, such as the Registers of Slave Liberation in Colonial Senegal, unveil new narratives and perspectives on the pathways out of slavery? What insights and collaborative research opportunities can arise from bridging scholars based in Sen…

  • Senegal Liberation Database Lesson

    Kelly Duke Bryant, Sharon Cohen et al.ARTICLEJournal of West African History2025

    This social studies unit plan, aimed at high school history students, grows out of research into the registers of slave liberation created by French officials in Senegal from 1848 to 1903 and into the guardianship system that the French imposed to provide supervision for liberated minor children. It includes a series of classroom activities and assessments, a background essay, a set of primary sources, and other materials.World History, World His…

  • Conflicts of Colonialism: The Rule of Law, French Soudan, and Faama Mademba Sèye

    Open AccessRichard L Roberts, Richard RobertsBOOKConflicts of Colonialism2022

    Based around the life of Mademba Sèye, an African born in the colonial town of Saint Louis du Sénégal in 1852, who transformed himself with the help of his French patrons from a telegraph clerk into an African king, this book examines Mademba's life and career to reveal how colonialism in French West Africa was articulated differently at different times and how Mademba survived these changes by periodically reinventing himself. Investigating Made…

  • Forced Labour

    Open AccessBabacar Fall, Richard L RobertsCHAPTERGeneral Labour History of Africa2019

  • THREE Forced Labour

    Babacar Fall, Richard L RobertsCHAPTERGeneral Labour History of Africa2019

  • Forced Labour

    Open AccessBabacar Fall, Richard L RobertsCHAPTERGeneral Labour History of Africa2019

    In its 1930 Convention on Forced Labour, the International Labour Organization defined ‘forced or compulsory labour’ as ‘all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily’. Representatives at the Geneva Convention further clarified forced labour as a particular ‘practice of compulsory labour exacted by a state or by agencies of a state, other than…

  • Viral video ‘blood chocolate’ activism, millennial anti-trafficking, and the neoliberal resurgence of shaming

    B N Lawrance, Richard L Roberts et al.ARTICLESlavery and Abolition2019

    Viral videos offer contemporary activists a nimble, provocative tool with which to disseminate humanitarian messages. This article historicizes anti-trafficking video media that imagine a new potential with which to alter behavioral norms around cocoa and chocolate. The article engages theories and approaches to historical and contemporary modalities of naming and shaming, spanning three centuries to the present day. Videos are examined for style…

  • General Labour History of Africa: Workers, Employers and Governments, 20th-21st Centuries

    Open AccessStefano Bellucci, Andreas Eckert et al.BOOKGeneral Labour History of Africa2019Cited by: 14

  • Production and Reproduction of Warrior States: Segu Bambara and Segu Tokolor, c. 1712–1890

    Richard L Roberts, Richard RobertsCHAPTERAfrican Military History2017

    This chapter begins with the creation of a warrior state under Mamari (also called Biton) Kulubali around 1712. The defeat of the Segu Bambara forces at Witala pushed the balance of power in favor of further tonjonw decentralization. This characterized both the joint Segu-Masina alliance at Tio opposite Sinsani in January 1861 and the ephemeral defense of Segu itself in March 1861. The chapter explores the conceptual and explanatory problems in s…

  • Marriage by Force: Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa

    Doris Buss, Emily S Burrill et al.BOOKMarriage by Force?2016

  • Marriage by Force: Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa

    Annie Bunting, Benjamin N Lawrance et al.BOOKMarriage by Force?2016

  • African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History (review)

    Richard L Roberts, Richard RobertARTICLEBiography2003

    Luise White, Stephan E. Miescher, and David William Cohen, eds. African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001. 322 pp. ISBN 0-253-33948-0, $49.95 cloth; ISBN 0-253-21468-8, $22.95 paper

  • Two Worlds of Cotton: Colonialism and the Regional Economy in the French Soudan, 1800-1946

    E Ann Mcdougall, Richard L Roberts et al.ARTICLECanadian Journal of African…2001

  • Two Worlds of Cotton: Colonialism and the Regional Economy in the French Soudan, 1800-1946

    Robert Forster, Richard L Roberts et al.ARTICLEThe American Historical Review1998Cited by: 2

  • Two Worlds of Cotton: Colonialism and the Regional Economy in the French Soudan, 1800-1946

    Monica M Van Beusekom, Richard L Roberts et al.ARTICLEThe International Journal of…1998Cited by: 18

    A major new approach to the study of the social and economic history of colonial French West Africa, this book traces French efforts to establish a cotton export economy in the French Soudan from the early nineteenth century through the end of World War II. Cotton cultivation and handicraft cotton textile production had long been an important part of the indigenous regional economies of West Africa. During the nineteenth century, the French metro…

  • Two Worlds of Cotton: Colonialism and the Regional Economy in the French Soudan, 1800-1946

    Eric Silla, Richard L Roberts et al.ARTICLEAfrican Studies Review1998

  • Slavery in Africa and the Slave Trades from Africa

    Janet J Ewald, William Gervase Clarence‐smith et al.ARTICLEThe American Historical Review1992Cited by: 2

  • Guinée Cloth: Linked Transformations in Production within France's Empire in the Nineteenth Century

    Open AccessRichard L Roberts, Richard RobertsARTICLECahiers d études africaines1992Cited by: 3

    R. Roberïs - À propos des étoffes dites « gainées » : transformations liées à la production dans l'empire français au cours du XIXe siècle. Cet article envisage la production et la circulation des guinées comme moyen d'accès à l'un des aspects négligés de la colonisation - l'importance des relations entre colonies - aspect qui ne retient pas en général l'attention des historiens de la colonisation. On s'efforce de montrer que les décisions d'ordr…

  • Law in Colonial Africa

    Kristin Mann, Richard L RobertsBOOKLaw in Colonial Africa1991Cited by: 72

  • The End of slavery in Africa

    Richard L Roberts, Suzanne MiersBOOKThe End of slavery in Africa1988Cited by: 70

  • Warriors, merchants, and slaves: The state and the economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700-1914

    Richard L RobertsBOOKWarriors, merchants, and slaves1987Cited by: 30

  • Ecologically Specialized Trade and Economic Growth: A Reply

    Open AccessRichard L Roberts, Richard RobertsARTICLECahiers d études africaines1980

    R. Roberts — Commerce à spécialisation écologique et croissance économique : réponse. Réponse aux commentaires de Baier, Amselle, Chauveau et Person. L'auteur admet le caractère mécaniste d'une explication trop strictement géographique (ou écologique) de la division du travail, mais maintient l'importance différentielle des contraintes de cet ordre. De même, en ce qui concerne les rapports entre économie marchande et organisation étatique, il sou…

  • Production and Reproduction of Warrior States: Segu Bambara and Segu Tokolor, c. 1712-1890

    Richard L Roberts, Richard RobertsARTICLEThe International Journal of…1980Cited by: 6

    Richard L. Roberts, Production and Reproduction of Warrior States: Segu Bambara and Segu Tokolor, c. 1712-1890, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1980), pp. 389-419

  • Linkages and Multiplier Effects in the Ecologically Specialized Trade of Precolonial West Africa

    Open AccessRichard L Roberts, Richard RobertsARTICLECahiers d études africaines1980Cited by: 4References: 1

    R. Roberts - Effets multiplicateurs et concaténation dans le commerce éco-spécialisê de l'Afrique précoloniale. Analyse critique des théories défendues par A. G. Hopkins {An Economie History of West Africa, 1973) à propos des effets produits par la division géographique (ou écologique) du travail et de la production en Afrique occidentale. L'auteur conclut que le développement économique précolonial s'explique mieux par la spécificité politique d…