Atlantic Africa—the region extending from Senegal to Angola—has few natural harbors, compelling Africans to cross through surf to reach fisheries and coastal shipping lanes.  Sources suggest that one thousand years ago Africans independently developed surfing to understand how to design and surf waves ashore in surf-canoes loaded with fish cargo.  Today, Atlantic Africans remain the only people to harness wave energy as part of their daily labor practices.  Even as Europeans crossed oceans, their rowboats were too slow to navigate African surf-zones, and routinely capsized.  Hence, surf-canoemen transported most of the goods imported into and exported out of Africa between ship-and-shore, including the majority of the twelve million captives shipped into Atlantic slavery.  This talk considers how African maritime wisdom and expertise informed the cultural and economic development of the Atlantic world.

Zoom: RSVP