Lukas Wissel

Panyarring, Pawnship, Company Slaves: Asymmetrical Dependencies on the Lower Guinea Coast, c. 1680–1750 (Working Title)

My project analyzes the development and interactions of various forms of dependencies on West Africa’s Lower Guinea Coast (specifically the stretch from Axim in the West to Lagos in the East), approximately from 1680 to 1750. I focus first and foremost on local (understood as a purely geographical term) forms of dependency, such as pawnship and slavery, as well as the practice called panyarring, rather than the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Mainly using the detailed "Dagregisters" of the Dutch West India Company (WIC), as well as the records of other trading companies, I aim to provide a detailed study of these practices and concepts in their local context, thus contributing to both the historiography of slavery and dependencies, as well as to the historiography of West Africa.

since 2021
Ph.D. in History, University of Bonn, Germany

2018–2020
M.A. in History, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

2013–2018
B.A. in History, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany 

since 2021
PhD Researcher in Research Group "The Concept of Slavery in African History," University of Bonn, Germany

2019–2020
Student Assistant, Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

2019
Student Assistant, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW), Germany (at Goethe University Frankfurt), Germany

2018
Student Assistant, Historical Seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

2017–2018
Student Assistant, Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany