Marcus Rediker - The Slave Ship, A Human History

Marcus Rediker - The Slave Ship, A Human History
[John Murray 2007]

According to W. E. B. Dubois, the slave trade was 'the most magnificent drama in the last thousand years of human history'. Marcus Rediker demonstrates the truth in this statement by uncovering the magnitude of the human drama that was played out on the slave ship during history's greatest forced migration.

The Slave Ship focuses on the so-called 'golden age' of the slave trade, the period 1700-1808, when more than six million people were transported out of Africa — most of them on British and American ships — across the Atlantic, to slave on New World plantations. Marcus Rediker tells poignant tales of life, death and terror as he captures the shipboard drama of brutal discipline and fierce resistance. He reconstructs the lives of individuals, such as John Newton, James Field Stanfield and Olaudah Equiano, and the collective experience of captains, sailors and slaves. Mindful of the haunting legacies of race, class and slavery, he offers a vivid and unforgettable portrait of the ghost ship of our modern consciousness.

In his introduction Marcus Rediker ends with, 'To conclude on a personal note, this has been a painful book to write, and if I have done justice to the subject, it will be a painful book to read. There is no way around this, nor should there be. I offer this study with the greatest reverence for those who suffered almost unthinkable violence, terror and death, in the firm belief that we must remember that such horrors have always been, and remain, central to the making of global capitalism.'

Contents

Introduction

1. Life, Death, and Terror in the Slave Trade
Captain Tomba
"The Boatswain"
Name Unknown
"Sarah"
Cabin Boy Samuel Robinson
Sailor and Pirate Bartholomew Roberts
Sailor and Petty Slave Trader Nicholas Owen
Captain William Snelgrave
Captain William Watkins
Captain James Fraser
Captain and Merchant Robert Norris
Merchant Humphry Morice
Merchant Henry Laurens
"The Greedy Robbers"

2. The Evolution of the Slave Ship
Malachy Postlethwayt: The Political Arithmetic of the Slave Trade, 1745
Joseph Manesty: A Slave Ship Built, 1745
Captain Anthony Fox: A Slave Ship's Crew, 1748
Thomas Clarkson: The Variety of Slaving Vessels, 1787
Jon Riland: A Slave Ship Described, 1801

3. African Paths to the Middle Passage
The Slave Trade in Africa
Senegambia
Sierra Leone and the Windward Coast
Gold Coast
Bight of Benin
Bight of Biafra
West-Central Africa
A Social Portrait of the Captives
Grand Pillage: Louis Asa-Asa
Kidnapping: Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
The Point of No Return

4. Olaudah Equiano: Astonishment and Terror
Equiano's Home
Kidnapped
On the Magical Ship
Middle Passage
Barbados
Long Passage
Terror in Black and White

5. James Field Stanfield and the Floating Dungeon
What an English Tar Should Be
Forging the Chain
Savage Rigour
The Demon Cruelty
In "Proud Benin"
Middle Passage
One Dreadful Shriek
Real Enlightenment

6. John Newton and the Peaceful Kingdom
From Rebel Sailor to Christian Captain
First Voyage, 1750-51
Second Voyage, 1752-53
Third Voyage, 1753-54
Lost and Found

7. The Captain's Own Hell
The Path to the Ship
Merchant Capital
"The Guinea Outfit"
Bully
Trader
Brother Captain
Jailer
The Savage Spirit of the Trade

8. The Sailor's Vast Machine
From Port to Ship
The Culture of the Common Sailor
Work on the Ship
Sailors, Slaves, and Violence
The Dead List
Mutiny and Desertion
End of the Voyage
Insurrection: Liverpool, 1775
The Return of the Dancing Sailor

9. From Captives to Shipmates
Boarding the Ship
Working
Fighting
Dying
Building Babel
Communicating Belowdecks
Singing
Resistance: Refusing to Eat
Jumping Overboard
Rising Up
Going Home to Guinea
Bonding

10. The Long Voyage of the Slave Ship Brooks
The First Image: Plymouth
Transit: Philadelphia and New York
An "Improved" Image: London
"First-Rate Nautical Knowledge"
The Brooks in the Debate
A New Debate
Impact
Final Port

Epilogue: Endless Passage
The "Most Magnificent Drama" Revisited
Reconciliation from Below
Dead Reckoning

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Illustration sources and credits

 

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