Review: Slaves for Peanuts by Jori Lewis
Disclaimer: I received this book from Goodreads to review.
I recently finished reading Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History, the debut book of journalist Jori Lewis published by The New Press, a nonprofit publisher with a focus on social justice. Slaves for Peanuts fits the bill, describing the role that peanuts have in slavery, colonialistion, and evangelism in Western Africa — especially modern Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Gambia — during the mid to late 19th century.
The book follows the lives of multiple figures important to the area while tracking local events, along with those in France and its other colonies. Reverend Walter Samuel Taylor, a missionary with the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, appears throughout the book as a brave but chronically ill man who hid former slaves in his home until their could receive freedom papers, all while fighting the racism and anti-Protestantism of the French government. Lat Joor Ngoone Latyr Joob, the damel or military leader of the kingdom of Kajoor in modern Senegal, attempted to bargain with the French while maintaining the rigid hierarchy and legalized slavery in his country. Nyara Bely Lightborn, a multilingual peanut plantation owner called “the Zenobia of West Africa”, terrorized both enslaved and free locals until converting to Christianity near the end of her life. Amid this large cast of real-life characters was the peanut, with information about its growth, harvest, and products woven through the story.
The book had many strong points. The information presented was thoroughly research, with an easy to track notes section in the back of the book, along with an index. The number of resources gathered across three continents and in multiple languages was truly staggering. Lewis has set herself apart as a researcher. Beyond figures and names, the storylines were emotionally gripping, a difficult accomplishment for a nonfiction book. The maps in the front of the book were helpful when locating villages or kingdoms mentioned in the text. And while we should not judge a book by its cover, the bright orange front jacket with a saturated vintage drawing of peanuts intertwined with a title set in a beautiful serif font made the book all the more intriguing.
I did experience some struggles while reading the book. Although I am more familiar with French colonial history and Wolof culture than the average reader, the barrage of names and locations from multiple languages sometime became overwhelming. With fifty-five chapters divided into eight parts, the sections tended to be short, which was convenient when I had only a brief time to read in a sitting. However, the topics tended to change from chapter to chapter. In a section, I might read about how to harvest peanuts, Taylor’s trip to Paris, the conversion of Nyara Bely, a transcription on the fate of enslaved people from Saint Louis in Senegal, the problems faced by La Joor in his kingdom, abolition in France, and reprinted photographs.
Overall, this was a comprehensive read on a subject that I knew about tangentially through my own research on slavery and transatlantic trade but now have significantly more knowledge. A timeline accompanying the maps would make a great addition to the book. At about 300 pages of writing, the book is the perfect length for its subject matter. The book is suitable for historians and would make a great supplemental book for a college level course or an advanced high school class.
