After the Chains Broke

After the Chains Broke examines how contemporary wealth, status, and livelihoods among Ghana’s elite and middle classes are rooted in intergenerational inheritances forged during Atlantic slavery and its colonial afterlives. Drawing on linked genealogies, colonial administrative records, household surveys, and digital archives from coastal West Africa, the study reconstructs elite lineages that descend from precolonial slaveholders, including traditional rulers, missionaries, coastal Euro-Africans, and powerful caboceers. Using Markov chain models of social mobility, the analysis estimates how advantage is transmitted across generations and shows that a substantial share of professional attainment, property ownership, and institutional access is inherited rather than newly earned. The findings reveal how capital accumulated through slavery and colonial mediation was converted into education, credentials, and political influence, reproducing privilege long after formal abolition. By quantifying these pathways, the paper offers a novel framework for understanding how historical violence becomes durable inequality, with implications for debates on mobility, development, and reparative justice.