Richard Anderson

I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in Africa history, focusing on pre-colonial and colonial West Africa. My dissertation, entitled “Recaptives: Community and Identity in Sierra Leone, 1808-1863,” explores the social and cultural history of freed slaves settled in and around Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown. My research has received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a Fox International Fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. At Yale, I work with Robert Harms, Edward Rugemer, Stuart Schwartz, and Daniel Magaziner.

Prior to Yale, I completed a BA in history and political science at the University of Waterloo, and a Master’s in African Studies at the University of Oxford, where I received the Ioma Evans-Pritchard Scholarship in African Studies from St. Anne’s College.

Feel free to email me with any questions regarding the study of Africa at Yale.