Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa is a collection of ten studies by the most prominent historians of the region. Slavery was more important in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa than often has been assumed, and Africans from the interior played a more complex role than was previously recognized. The essays in this collection reveal the connections between the peoples of the region as well as their encounters with the conquering Europeans. The contributors challenge the assertion that domestic slavery increased in Africa as a result of the international trade. Slavery in this region was not a uniform phenomenon and the line between enslaved and non-slave labor was fine. Kinship ties could mark the difference between free and unfree labor. Social categories were not always clear-cut and the status of a slave could change within a lifetime.

Contents: - Introduction by Henri Médard - Language Evidence of Slavery to the Eighteenth Century by David Schoenbrun - The Rise of Slavery & Social Change in Unyamwezi 1860-1900 by Jan-Georg Deutsch - Slavery & Forced Labour in the Eastern Congo 1850-1910 by David Northrup - Legacies of Slavery in North West Uganda 'The One-Elevens' by Mark Leopold - Human Booty in Buganda: The Seizure of People in War, c.1700-c.1900 by Richard Reid - Stolen People & Autonomous Chiefs in Nineteenth-Century Buganda by Holly Hanson - Women's Experiences of Slavery in Late Nineteenth- & Early Twentieth-Century Uganda by Michael W. Tuck - Slavery & Social Oppression in Ankole 1890-1940 by Edward I. Steinhart - The Slave Trade in Burundi & Rwanda at the Beginning of German Colonisation 1890-1906 by Jean-Pierre Chretien - Bunyoro & the Demography of Slavery Debate by Shane Doyle