Dr Jelmer Vos

  • Senior Lecturer (History)

Biography

I am a historian of Africa with a special interest in the Atlantic slave trade, labour, and commodity history. After completing my PhD at the University of London (SOAS), I was a postdoctoral researcher at Emory University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Before coming to Glasgow, in 2018, I taught African history at Old Dominion University in Virginia. My work has long been concerned with the history of northern Angola, resulting in a book on the kingdom of Kongo, which examines an African people's experience with Christianity, global commerce and colonial labour. My current research focusses on coffee cultivation in Angola, combining insights from social, economic, and environmental history. Together with my colleague Professor Jonathan Morris (Hertfordshire) I am also building a research network called African Coffee Histories to bring together scholars and experts with an interest in past and current coffee cultivation in Africa.

Research interests

Research interests

  • Atlantic slave trade
  • African social and economic history
  • Commodities and labour in the global south

Current projects

Coffee and colonialism in Angola, 1820-1960

In this book project, I aim to explain how Angolan robusta coffee became a global commodity, how western demand for this product affected the lives of the Africans who produced it, and how local cultivation methods were related to landscapes.

Coffee nursery in Uige, Angola

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006
Number of items: 50.

2025

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2025) Wealth, Land, and Property in Angola: A History of Dispossession, Slavery, and Inequality, by Mariano P. Candido (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2022; pp. xiv + 323. £85). English Historical Review, (doi: 10.1093/ehr/ceaf008)[Book Review] (Early Online Publication)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2025) Coffee and Colonialism in Angola, 1820–1960. James Currey: Woodbridge. (Accepted for Publication)

2024

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2024) Family and labour in an Angolan cash-crop economy, 1910. History of the Family, 29(2), pp. 280-298. (doi: 10.1080/1081602X.2023.2179095)

2023

Curry-Machado, Jonathan, Stubbs, Jean, Clarence-Smith, William and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (Eds.) (2023) Oxford Handbook of Commodity History. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197502679

Antunes, Cátia and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2023) Port cities and commodities: Luanda in the early modern period. In: Curry-Machado, Jonathan, Stubbs, Jean, Clarence-Smith, William and Vos, Jelmer (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Commodity History. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 127-144. ISBN 9780197502686 (doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197502679.013.24)

Clarence-Smith, William Gervase and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2023) Conclusion: Towards a multi-centred approach to commodity history. In: Curry-Machado, Jonathan, Stubbs, Jean, Clarence-Smith, William and Vos, Jelmer (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Commodity History. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press, pp. 679-696. ISBN 9780197502686 (doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197502679.013.35)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2023) What Angolans got for their coffee: connecting histories of labour and consumption in colonial Africa, c. 1860–1960. In: Gupta, Devyani and Hossain, Purba (eds.) Across Colonial Lines: Commodities, Networks and Empire Building. Series: Empire’s other histories. Bloomsbury Academic: London ; New York, pp. 157-177. ISBN 9781350327023 (doi: 10.5040/9781350333864.ch-6)

2022

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2022) Sven Van Melkebeke. Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers. Mobilizing Labor and Land in the Lake Kivu Region, Congo and Rwanda (1918–1960/62). [African History, Vol. 9.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2020. xiv, 335 pp. Ill. Maps. € 75.00; $91.00. (E-book: € 75.00; $91.00.). International Review of Social History, 67(3), pp. 567-569. (doi: 10.1017/S0020859022000736)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2022) Stuart McCook, Coffee is not forever: A global history of the Coffee Leaf Rust (Ohio University Press, 2019). 306 pp. 28 illus. $34.95. Agricultural History Review, 70(1), pp. 164-165. [Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Ellison, Marc, Jessee, Erin ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8132-7966, Mbowa, Swaibu, Morris, Jonathan and Nakazi, Florence (2022) Uganda’s Black Gold. [Audio]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Opolot, Mouris, Jessee, Erin ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8132-7966, Mbowa, Swaibu, Morris, Jonathan and Nakazi, Florence (2022) Understanding Uganda’s Domestic Coffee Consumption. [Audio]

2021

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 and de Matos, Paulo Teodoro (2021) The demography of slavery in the coffee districts of Angola, c. 1800–70. Journal of African History, 62(2), pp. 213-234. (doi: 10.1017/S0021853721000396)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2021) The coffee frontier in proto-colonial and colonial Angola. Commodity Frontiers, 2(Spring), pp. 1-4. (doi: 10.18174/cf.2021a18078)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2021) Back to the Ivory Coast: Dutch commodity trading in West Africa, 1740-1809. In: Horta, José da Silva, Almeida, Carlos and Mark, Peter (eds.) African Ivories in the Atlantic World. Centre for History of the University of Lisbon: Lisbon, pp. 401-416. ISBN 9789898068361

2019

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2019) Todd Cleveland. Diamonds in the Rough: Corporate Paternalism and African Professionalism on the Mines of Colonial Angola, 1917–1975. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. Enterprise and Society, 20(2), pp. 528-531. (doi: 10.1017/eso.2018.52)[Book Review]

2018

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Kongo cosmopolitans in the nineteenth century. In: Bostoen, Koen and Brinkman, Inge (eds.) The Kongo Kingdom: The Origins, Dynamics and Cosmopolitan Culture of an African Polity. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 235-253. ISBN 9781108474184 (doi: 10.1017/9781108564823.011)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Coffee, cash, and consumption: rethinking commodity production in the global south. Radical History Review, 131, pp. 183-188. (doi: 10.1215/01636545-4355329)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Linda Heywood, Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen. American Historical Review, 123(1), pp. 358-359. (doi: 10.1093/ahr/123.1.358)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Kongo and the coastal states of West Central Africa. In: Spear, Thomas (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. Oxford University Press. (doi: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846733-0052)

2017

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2017) Beyond European and American Slavery and into the Present. Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition, 2nd edition. Edited by Martin A. Klein. Journal of African History, 58(01), pp. 149-151. (doi: 10.1017/S0021853716000748)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2017) Império, patronato e uma revolta no reino do Kongo = Empire, patronage and a revolt in the kingdom of Kongo. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 33, pp. 157-182. (doi: 10.4000/cea.2225)

2016

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2016) David Birmingham. A Short History of Modern Angola. African Studies Review, 59(03), pp. 233-234. (doi: 10.1017/asr.2016.98)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2016) Networks and Trans-Cultural Exchange. Slave Trading in the South Atlantic, 1590–1867. Ed. by David Richardson and Filipa Ribeiro da Silva. International Review of Social History, 61(2), pp. 331-333. (doi: 10.1017/S0020859016000274)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2016) The growth of the Atlantic slave trade on the windward coast of Africa. In: Misevich, P. and Mann, K. (eds.) The Rise and Demise of Atlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade: New Perspectives. Series: Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora (71). University of Rochester Press: Rochester, NY, pp. 128-151. ISBN 9781580465601

2015

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2015) African adaptations of Christianity. In: Miller, Joseph C. (ed.) The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History. Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 93-96. ISBN 9780691148533

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2015) Imperialism, economic development and social change in West Africa, Raymond E. Dumett. Canadian Journal of African Studies = Revue canadienne des études africaines, 49(3), pp. 496-498. (doi: 10.1080/00083968.2015.1058051)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2015) Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860-1913: The Breakdown of a Moral Order. Series: Africa and the diaspora: history, politics, culture. University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, Wisconsin. ISBN 9780299306205

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Axelsson, P. and de Matos, P.T. (2015) Introduction. Anais de História de Além-Mar, 16, pp. 11-18.

2014

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2014) Work in times of slavery, colonialism, and civil war: labor relations in Angola from 1800 to 2000. History in Africa, 41, pp. 363-385. (doi: 10.1017/hia.2014.8)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2014) An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland by Mariana P. Candido. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 47(2), pp. 367-369. [Book Review]

2013

de Matos, Paulo Teodoro and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Demografia e relações de trabalho em Angola c.1800: um ensaio metodológico = Demography and labor relationships in Angola c.1800: a methodological essay. Diálogos, 17(3), pp. 907-934. (doi: 10.4025/dialogos.v17i3.795)

Vanhee, Hein and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Kongo in the age of empire. In: Cooksey, S., Poynor, R. and Vanhee, H. (eds.) Kongo across the Waters. University Press of Florida: Gainesville, pp. 78-87. ISBN 9780813049151

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Kongo, North America and the slave trade. In: Cooksey, S., Poynor, R. and Vanhee, H. (eds.) Kongo across the Waters. University Press of Florida: Gainesville, pp. 40-49. ISBN 9780813049151

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Of stocks and barter: John Holt and the Kongo rubber trade, 1906–1910. In: Curry-Machado, Jonathan (ed.) Global Histories, Imperial Commodities, Local Interactions. Series: Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series. Palgrave Macmillan: London, pp. 77-99. ISBN 9781349448982 (doi: 10.1057/9781137283603_5)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) The Power of Doubt: Essays in Honor of David Henige by Paul S. Landau. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 46(1), pp. 173-174. [Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 and Kananoja, Kalle (2013) Portuguese slave trade in the Americas. In: Ness, Immanuel (ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Wiley-Blackwell: Hoboken, NJ. ISBN 9781444334890 (doi: 10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm421)

2012

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2012) From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830. By Walter Hawthorne. Journal of Social History, 46(1), pp. 261-264. (doi: 10.1093/jsh/shs021)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2012) From colonial revolt to pre-colonial history: reflections on the Kongo uprising of 1913. In: Meneses, Avelino de Freitas de (ed.) Das autonomias à autonomia e à independência: o Atlântico político entre os séculos XV e XXI. Letras Lavadas: Ponta Delgada, pp. 137-152. ISBN 9789728633752

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2012) ‘Without the slave trade, no recruitment’: from slave trading to ‘migrant recruitment’ in the Lower Congo, 1830-1890. In: Lawrance, Benjamin N. and Roberts, Richard L. (eds.) Trafficking in Slavery's Wake: Law and the Experiences of Women and Children in Africa. Series: New African histories. Ohio University Press: Athens, Ohio, pp. 45-64. ISBN 9780821420027

2011

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2011) Of stocks and barter: John Holt and the Kongo rubber trade, 1906-1910. Portuguese Studies Review, 19(1-2), pp. 153-175.

2010

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2010) Child slaves and freemen at the Spiritan mission in Soyo, 1880-1885. Journal of Family History, 35(1), pp. 71-90. (doi: 10.1177/0363199009348285)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2010) The slave trade from the Windward Coast: the case of the Dutch, 1740-1805. African Economic History, 38, pp. 29-51.

2008

Allen, Keith R. and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2008) Slavery-era disclosure and Atlantic commerce. Perspectives on History, 46(7), pp. 55-57.

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2008) Encyclopedia of emancipation and abolition in the transatlantic world Edited by Juniez Rodriguez. Journal of Global History, 3(2), pp. 284-286. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022808002702)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2008) The economics of the Kwango rubber trade, c. 1900. In: Heintze, Beatrix and von Oppen, Achim (eds.) Angola on the Move: Transport Routes, Communication and History. Verlag Otto Lembeck: Frankfurt am Main, pp. 85-98. ISBN 9783874765534

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Eltis, David and Richardson, David (2008) The Dutch in the Atlantic World: new perspectives from the slave trade with particular reference to the African origins of the traffic. In: Eltis, D. and Richardson, D. (eds.) Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, pp. 228-249. ISBN 9780300134360 (doi: 10.12987/yale/9780300134360.003.0008)

2007

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2007) Revoltas Escravas: Mistificações e Mal-Entendidos By João Pedro Marques. Journal of Global History, 2(3), pp. 410-411. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022807002392)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2007) Atlas of slavery By James Walvin. Journal of Global History, 2(2), pp. 259-260. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022807246017)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2007) Forced labour and the fall of the King of Kongo (1912-1913). In: Trabalho forçado africano: articulações com o poder politico. Series: Colecção Estudos africanos (3). Campo das Letras: Porto, pp. 231-248. ISBN 978989625197

2006

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2006) Slavery in southern Kongo in the late nineteenth century. In: Trabalho forçado africano: experiências coloniais comparadas. Series: Colecção Estudos africanos (1). Campo das Letras: Porto, pp. 315-336. ISBN 9789896250911

This list was generated on Sun Jun 15 06:35:08 2025 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Edited Books | Audio
Number of items: 50.

Articles

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2024) Family and labour in an Angolan cash-crop economy, 1910. History of the Family, 29(2), pp. 280-298. (doi: 10.1080/1081602X.2023.2179095)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 and de Matos, Paulo Teodoro (2021) The demography of slavery in the coffee districts of Angola, c. 1800–70. Journal of African History, 62(2), pp. 213-234. (doi: 10.1017/S0021853721000396)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2021) The coffee frontier in proto-colonial and colonial Angola. Commodity Frontiers, 2(Spring), pp. 1-4. (doi: 10.18174/cf.2021a18078)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Coffee, cash, and consumption: rethinking commodity production in the global south. Radical History Review, 131, pp. 183-188. (doi: 10.1215/01636545-4355329)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2017) Império, patronato e uma revolta no reino do Kongo = Empire, patronage and a revolt in the kingdom of Kongo. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 33, pp. 157-182. (doi: 10.4000/cea.2225)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Axelsson, P. and de Matos, P.T. (2015) Introduction. Anais de História de Além-Mar, 16, pp. 11-18.

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2014) Work in times of slavery, colonialism, and civil war: labor relations in Angola from 1800 to 2000. History in Africa, 41, pp. 363-385. (doi: 10.1017/hia.2014.8)

de Matos, Paulo Teodoro and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Demografia e relações de trabalho em Angola c.1800: um ensaio metodológico = Demography and labor relationships in Angola c.1800: a methodological essay. Diálogos, 17(3), pp. 907-934. (doi: 10.4025/dialogos.v17i3.795)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2011) Of stocks and barter: John Holt and the Kongo rubber trade, 1906-1910. Portuguese Studies Review, 19(1-2), pp. 153-175.

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2010) Child slaves and freemen at the Spiritan mission in Soyo, 1880-1885. Journal of Family History, 35(1), pp. 71-90. (doi: 10.1177/0363199009348285)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2010) The slave trade from the Windward Coast: the case of the Dutch, 1740-1805. African Economic History, 38, pp. 29-51.

Allen, Keith R. and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2008) Slavery-era disclosure and Atlantic commerce. Perspectives on History, 46(7), pp. 55-57.

Books

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2025) Coffee and Colonialism in Angola, 1820–1960. James Currey: Woodbridge. (Accepted for Publication)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2015) Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860-1913: The Breakdown of a Moral Order. Series: Africa and the diaspora: history, politics, culture. University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, Wisconsin. ISBN 9780299306205

Book Sections

Antunes, Cátia and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2023) Port cities and commodities: Luanda in the early modern period. In: Curry-Machado, Jonathan, Stubbs, Jean, Clarence-Smith, William and Vos, Jelmer (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Commodity History. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 127-144. ISBN 9780197502686 (doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197502679.013.24)

Clarence-Smith, William Gervase and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2023) Conclusion: Towards a multi-centred approach to commodity history. In: Curry-Machado, Jonathan, Stubbs, Jean, Clarence-Smith, William and Vos, Jelmer (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Commodity History. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press, pp. 679-696. ISBN 9780197502686 (doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197502679.013.35)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2023) What Angolans got for their coffee: connecting histories of labour and consumption in colonial Africa, c. 1860–1960. In: Gupta, Devyani and Hossain, Purba (eds.) Across Colonial Lines: Commodities, Networks and Empire Building. Series: Empire’s other histories. Bloomsbury Academic: London ; New York, pp. 157-177. ISBN 9781350327023 (doi: 10.5040/9781350333864.ch-6)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2021) Back to the Ivory Coast: Dutch commodity trading in West Africa, 1740-1809. In: Horta, José da Silva, Almeida, Carlos and Mark, Peter (eds.) African Ivories in the Atlantic World. Centre for History of the University of Lisbon: Lisbon, pp. 401-416. ISBN 9789898068361

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Kongo cosmopolitans in the nineteenth century. In: Bostoen, Koen and Brinkman, Inge (eds.) The Kongo Kingdom: The Origins, Dynamics and Cosmopolitan Culture of an African Polity. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 235-253. ISBN 9781108474184 (doi: 10.1017/9781108564823.011)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Kongo and the coastal states of West Central Africa. In: Spear, Thomas (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. Oxford University Press. (doi: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846733-0052)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2016) The growth of the Atlantic slave trade on the windward coast of Africa. In: Misevich, P. and Mann, K. (eds.) The Rise and Demise of Atlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade: New Perspectives. Series: Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora (71). University of Rochester Press: Rochester, NY, pp. 128-151. ISBN 9781580465601

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2015) African adaptations of Christianity. In: Miller, Joseph C. (ed.) The Princeton Companion to Atlantic History. Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 93-96. ISBN 9780691148533

Vanhee, Hein and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Kongo in the age of empire. In: Cooksey, S., Poynor, R. and Vanhee, H. (eds.) Kongo across the Waters. University Press of Florida: Gainesville, pp. 78-87. ISBN 9780813049151

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Kongo, North America and the slave trade. In: Cooksey, S., Poynor, R. and Vanhee, H. (eds.) Kongo across the Waters. University Press of Florida: Gainesville, pp. 40-49. ISBN 9780813049151

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) Of stocks and barter: John Holt and the Kongo rubber trade, 1906–1910. In: Curry-Machado, Jonathan (ed.) Global Histories, Imperial Commodities, Local Interactions. Series: Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series. Palgrave Macmillan: London, pp. 77-99. ISBN 9781349448982 (doi: 10.1057/9781137283603_5)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 and Kananoja, Kalle (2013) Portuguese slave trade in the Americas. In: Ness, Immanuel (ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Wiley-Blackwell: Hoboken, NJ. ISBN 9781444334890 (doi: 10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm421)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2012) From colonial revolt to pre-colonial history: reflections on the Kongo uprising of 1913. In: Meneses, Avelino de Freitas de (ed.) Das autonomias à autonomia e à independência: o Atlântico político entre os séculos XV e XXI. Letras Lavadas: Ponta Delgada, pp. 137-152. ISBN 9789728633752

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2012) ‘Without the slave trade, no recruitment’: from slave trading to ‘migrant recruitment’ in the Lower Congo, 1830-1890. In: Lawrance, Benjamin N. and Roberts, Richard L. (eds.) Trafficking in Slavery's Wake: Law and the Experiences of Women and Children in Africa. Series: New African histories. Ohio University Press: Athens, Ohio, pp. 45-64. ISBN 9780821420027

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2008) The economics of the Kwango rubber trade, c. 1900. In: Heintze, Beatrix and von Oppen, Achim (eds.) Angola on the Move: Transport Routes, Communication and History. Verlag Otto Lembeck: Frankfurt am Main, pp. 85-98. ISBN 9783874765534

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Eltis, David and Richardson, David (2008) The Dutch in the Atlantic World: new perspectives from the slave trade with particular reference to the African origins of the traffic. In: Eltis, D. and Richardson, D. (eds.) Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, pp. 228-249. ISBN 9780300134360 (doi: 10.12987/yale/9780300134360.003.0008)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2007) Forced labour and the fall of the King of Kongo (1912-1913). In: Trabalho forçado africano: articulações com o poder politico. Series: Colecção Estudos africanos (3). Campo das Letras: Porto, pp. 231-248. ISBN 978989625197

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2006) Slavery in southern Kongo in the late nineteenth century. In: Trabalho forçado africano: experiências coloniais comparadas. Series: Colecção Estudos africanos (1). Campo das Letras: Porto, pp. 315-336. ISBN 9789896250911

Book Reviews

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2025) Wealth, Land, and Property in Angola: A History of Dispossession, Slavery, and Inequality, by Mariano P. Candido (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2022; pp. xiv + 323. £85). English Historical Review, (doi: 10.1093/ehr/ceaf008)[Book Review] (Early Online Publication)

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2022) Sven Van Melkebeke. Dissimilar Coffee Frontiers. Mobilizing Labor and Land in the Lake Kivu Region, Congo and Rwanda (1918–1960/62). [African History, Vol. 9.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2020. xiv, 335 pp. Ill. Maps. € 75.00; $91.00. (E-book: € 75.00; $91.00.). International Review of Social History, 67(3), pp. 567-569. (doi: 10.1017/S0020859022000736)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2022) Stuart McCook, Coffee is not forever: A global history of the Coffee Leaf Rust (Ohio University Press, 2019). 306 pp. 28 illus. $34.95. Agricultural History Review, 70(1), pp. 164-165. [Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2019) Todd Cleveland. Diamonds in the Rough: Corporate Paternalism and African Professionalism on the Mines of Colonial Angola, 1917–1975. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015. Enterprise and Society, 20(2), pp. 528-531. (doi: 10.1017/eso.2018.52)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2018) Linda Heywood, Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen. American Historical Review, 123(1), pp. 358-359. (doi: 10.1093/ahr/123.1.358)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2017) Beyond European and American Slavery and into the Present. Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition, 2nd edition. Edited by Martin A. Klein. Journal of African History, 58(01), pp. 149-151. (doi: 10.1017/S0021853716000748)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2016) David Birmingham. A Short History of Modern Angola. African Studies Review, 59(03), pp. 233-234. (doi: 10.1017/asr.2016.98)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2016) Networks and Trans-Cultural Exchange. Slave Trading in the South Atlantic, 1590–1867. Ed. by David Richardson and Filipa Ribeiro da Silva. International Review of Social History, 61(2), pp. 331-333. (doi: 10.1017/S0020859016000274)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2015) Imperialism, economic development and social change in West Africa, Raymond E. Dumett. Canadian Journal of African Studies = Revue canadienne des études africaines, 49(3), pp. 496-498. (doi: 10.1080/00083968.2015.1058051)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2014) An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and Its Hinterland by Mariana P. Candido. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 47(2), pp. 367-369. [Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2013) The Power of Doubt: Essays in Honor of David Henige by Paul S. Landau. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 46(1), pp. 173-174. [Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2012) From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830. By Walter Hawthorne. Journal of Social History, 46(1), pp. 261-264. (doi: 10.1093/jsh/shs021)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2008) Encyclopedia of emancipation and abolition in the transatlantic world Edited by Juniez Rodriguez. Journal of Global History, 3(2), pp. 284-286. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022808002702)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2007) Revoltas Escravas: Mistificações e Mal-Entendidos By João Pedro Marques. Journal of Global History, 2(3), pp. 410-411. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022807002392)[Book Review]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (2007) Atlas of slavery By James Walvin. Journal of Global History, 2(2), pp. 259-260. (doi: 10.1017/S1740022807246017)[Book Review]

Edited Books

Curry-Machado, Jonathan, Stubbs, Jean, Clarence-Smith, William and Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082 (Eds.) (2023) Oxford Handbook of Commodity History. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197502679

Audio

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Ellison, Marc, Jessee, Erin ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8132-7966, Mbowa, Swaibu, Morris, Jonathan and Nakazi, Florence (2022) Uganda’s Black Gold. [Audio]

Vos, Jelmer ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0468-9082, Opolot, Mouris, Jessee, Erin ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8132-7966, Mbowa, Swaibu, Morris, Jonathan and Nakazi, Florence (2022) Understanding Uganda’s Domestic Coffee Consumption. [Audio]

This list was generated on Sun Jun 15 06:35:08 2025 BST.

Grants

  • Scottish Funding Council GCRF small grant (2018/19), 'African Coffee Histories, African Coffee Futures', £61,113 
  • Radboud-Glasgow Collaboration Fund (2020/21), 'Slavery, Forced Migration and Family History: Towards a Durable Partnership in Research and Teaching', £10,852
  • Radboud-Glasgow Collaboration Fund (2019/20), ‘Life After Slavery: Setting the Research Agenda of Slave Histories in the Global Era, 1750-1900’, £7,680
  • Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2019/20), 'Coffee and Colonialism in Angola', £48,081
  • Economic History Society (2019), Initiatives and Conference Fund, £2,000
  • Scottish Funding Council GCRF small grant (2018/19), 'African Coffee Histories', £29,500
  • Summer Research Grant, College of Arts and Letters, Old Dominion University (2015), $5,000
  • Research Fellowship at the National Library of Portugal (2015), €2,000
  • IGK “Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History” fellowship, Humboldt University (2012/13), €70,000
  • Summer Research Grant, Old Dominion University (2011), $6,000
  • Postdoctoral Grant, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (2008-09), €36,000

Supervision

I am pleased to supervise all research projects broadly related to my expertise in the history of Africa and the Atlantic world.

Current supervision

Henry Dee, 'We demand free labour: African and Asian migrant workers, immigration controls and the international labour movement in interwar South Africa', British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship

Ayodele Ige, 'Medical pluralism and epistemic contestation among African healers and colonial doctors of south-western Nigeria'

Thajilah Olaiya, 'African lineage in the Danish West Indies: the Amina people' (second supervisor)

Charlene Jordan, 'The natural dye colours of Winti: Cultural influences, chemical analysis, and preservation of Suriname’s Afro-spiritual textile heritage pre-1850' (third supervisor)

 

Past supervision

Liley King, 'Sugar-plantation guides and the transnational history of the plantation complex, 1750-1910 (co-supervisor)

Christopher Blyth, 'The heterogeneity behind the homogeneous nation: how 'Greek' was the Greek War of Independence (1821-32)?' (second supervisor)

José Nilo Bezerra Diniz, ‘Os mapas que fizeram Angola: desenhos e desígnios na produção cartográfica do sul de Angola (1785-1886)’, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (second supervisor)

Teaching

Honours courses

The Atlantic slave trade, abolition and its aftermath in Africa, 1780-1910

Coffee, coke and chocolate: global ramifications of modern consumer cultures

Postgraduate courses

Commodity histories in the Global South, 1500-2000

Slavery and forced migration in global perspective (convenor)

Global history through local archives (convenor)

 

Additional information


Vos, Jelmer

Dr Jelmer Vos on Twitter