## Introduction  
In a seminal article that drew extensively on Pierre Verger's pioneering scholarship, historians Robin Law and Kristin Man coined the term 'Atlantic community' to refer to the historical and complex ties between the slave coast and the northern Brazilian region of Bahia (Law and Mann, 1999; Verger, 1987). Law and Mann viewed the Afro-Atlantic world as an integrated space by virtue of the constant circulation of people, ideas and goods. In their estimation, despite the oppression and violence brought about by the slave trade, it was a world marked by remarkable cultural fluidity and dynamic political configurations. Left unanswered is whether Afro-Atlantic communities also developed elsewhere in Africa.  
This chapter takes a trans-imperial approach to survey the creation of AfroAtlantic communities across Atlantic Africa. Philip Havik has pointed out that Afro-Atlantic communities were 'particularly active in the case of areas of Portuguese influence including the Upper Guinea coast, the Bight of Benin, and Angola' (Havik, 2018, p. 60). First, historians must inquire whether such communities existed in African regions such as the Gold Coast and the Loango coast, where the Portuguese were also active. Second, they must also probe AfroAtlantic communities in the context of Africa's engagement with European  
nations other than Portugal. More importantly, scholars must also seek to restore the place of African agency in the formation of Afro-Atlantic communities.