For King and Empire’
The Changing Political, Economic, and Cultural Identities of Kru Mariners in Atlantic Africa, 1460–1945
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8978374 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Megan Crutcher (0000-0001-7853-721X, Mitchell Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 437-448 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0021853723000567 |
| OpenAlex | W4386371234 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 29 |
This article traces histories of the Kru in West Africa from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, arguing that divergent identities of fifteenth- to eighteenth-century Kru canoers became unified when that unified identity was necessary for maintaining political, economic, and cultural autonomy during and after the slave trade. In conjunction with earlier multilingual work on the Kru mariners of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this article seeks to place the narrative of Kru identity and labor in a larger context of maritime history across the region at large. This article argues that the Kru relied on longstanding maritime traditions from localized groups to capitalize on the need for work and cash in a capitalist economy driven by growing European imperialism. The historical narrative of Kru maritime power shows how local and global identities in Atlantic Africa shifted in response to exploitation, blurring the lines between response and resistance
Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Autonomy · Context (archaeology · Economics · Economy · Expansionism · Fifteenth · Geography · Identity (music · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law
A lone woman in Africa
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Narrating our Pasts
Work and Community Among West African Migrant Workers since the Nineteenth Century
The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation
The Canoemen of the Gold Coast (Ghana). A Survey and an Exploration in Precolonial African Labour History
Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800
African Members of the Zambezi Expedition, 1861–1864 A Prosopographical Foray
Diasporan West African communities
Kru and Kanaka
Atlantic Passages
Portuguese” Architecture and Luso-African Identity in Senegambia and Guinea, 1730–1890
Thinking through “Vernacular Cosmopolitanisms”
Usos, Reusos E Abusos
Outsourcing African Labor
Evidence for a Luso-African Identity in “Portuguese” Accounts on “Guinea of Cape Verde” (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)
The Atlantic Slave Trade
The Canoe in West African History
Africa Encountered
The Kru Mariner in the Nineteenth Century
Mapping Ethnogenesis in the Early Modern Atlantic
The Liberian Struggle for Authority on the Kru Coast
"Krumen "Down the Coast
Une histoire maritime africaine est-elle possible ? Historiographie et histoire de la navigation et de la pêche africaines à la côte occidentale depuis le XVe siècle
Scarification and identity in the liberated Africans department register, 1814-1815
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |