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