Amazing work of scholarship on the slave ship as essentially the "shop floor" of Atlantic capitalism. This is based upon the audio download from [. I’m developing a science fiction novel about slavery called Humanity’s Fall. While we all know the slave ship/middle passage was a horror, this book really goes into excruciating detail like you couldn't possibly imagine. Although there weren't many (or any) written first-hand accounts by African women, I liked that the author made an effort to include their perspective, especi. It could have been as simple as his writing style didn't have much imagination. The book can be hard to read, emotionally speaking. The beginning, I found, was a little tedious, but as he moved on through successive chapters the massive edifice of human enterprise and concomitant misery that was the trans-Atlantic slave trade slowly comes into focus. This was a good book if for no other reason then it addresses a seldom talked about aspect of history. Rather than talk about the trade in the abstract, focusing on the slave ship as the point where all these things met allow him to emphasize the (in)human dimension of the slave trade. What he merely touches upon is that the slave trade happened because of the complicity of the African tribal leaders and merchants. Although there weren't many (or any) written first-hand accounts by African women, I liked that the author made an effort to include their perspective, especially at the beginning and end of the book. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. It's a little hard to love a book whose main objective is to painstakingly detail the extent of human cruelty and terror in the slave trade, especially when those details are revealingly extensive. Start by marking “The Slave Ship: A Human History” as Want to Read: Error rating book. Amazing work of scholarship on the slave ship as essentially the "shop floor" of Atlantic capitalism. The expansion of the "shipmate" concept into a root-formation of resistant Afro-diasporic culture and politics transforms an otherwise horrifying chronicle into something paradoxically optimistic, and militantly liberatory. 12:00 am ↓ Jump to Comments. The financial incentives to. The whole book is tragedy, and super frustrating to read, but the author does a great job synthesizing a lot of sources to clearly and humanely describe it all. This is an excellent book. Rediker aims to express how the slave ship as another site of the institution of slavery fostered most of the negative ideas on race that still persist in modern civilization. The author approached the slave ship from the perspective of the captains, the crew, the merchants, the slaves, and abolitionists. If the Africans did not promote slavery for their own greed and or tribal revenge, would the Black slave trade have existed to the degree in which it did? GradeSaver, 19 August 2019 Web. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating A testament to how the systematic use of terror on the ‘floating dungeon’ was beyond any comprehension in regards to human dignity. The gruesome and wretched experience of the slaves, the sailors, and the middle ranks are all detailed (using primary accounts when possible). For instance, who knew that ships built up their rails, so as to hang nets to thwart suicidal captives from jumping overboard? Sometimes the profits were so enticing. As the son of a slave owner, Riland begins having serious misgivings regarding the commerce of human slavery. It could have been as simple as his writing style didn't have. The stories of the captains, paying travellers (there was one! Participants in the slave trade were prone to think of the Africans as cannibals while thinking of themselves as ethical civilized redeemers and good Christians. I would love to read a book that focuses on what the Africans did to promote and sustain slavery. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. His source material is wide and encompasses all kinds of official records, published accounts, dairies, letters, and shipping diagrams. In many ways, this develops in deep, human detail a theme from C.L.R. I’m developing a science fiction novel about slavery called Humanity’s Fall. ), and the investors are also here. The financial incentives to become involved in the slave trade are detailed, as are the tremendous hazards. Death, as Rediker makes clear, was considered the better outcome by many aboard a slave ship. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Not a cohesive continuous story, but hundreds of unrelated short descriptions of the lives of sailors, slaves, merchants, captains, and the ships involved in the slave trade. He reconstructs in chilling detail the lives, deaths, and terrors of captains, sailors, and the enslaved aboard a âfloating dungeonâ trailed by sharks. I'm always ambivalent about Rediker's books. Rediker suggests that this should be the case, if historians are to avoid what he calls the occlusion of “pervasive torture and terror” through overly quantitative approaches or other narratives which do not foreground the sheer horror of it all. Welcome back. He told lots and lots of stories, which brought their experiences to life, and took all of his stories (seemingly) from first hand accounts. A remarkably readable (though emotionally difficult) overview of the 18th century Atlantic slave trade from the perspective of the ships and the people on them. This book was very thoroughly researched. Also recognizably Jamesian is the insistence on the primacy of the resistance and creative insurgency of workers, slave and free, to exploitation and bondage. Rediker emphasises the role of the slave ship as a transformative vehicle which took on board millions of multiethnic people from Africa and through the application of brutal technologies and the application of a rigid hierarchical system encompassing both violence and mental subjugation created a mass of "black slaves" who became the labour for expanding colonial economies. These would have included manacles and shackles, neck irons, chains of various kinds, and perhaps a branding iron. The whites “looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty”. I found this to be quite a good review of the history and experience of people involved in slave transportation from the early 1700s to the early 1800s. Hence being on board and seeing the extent of cruelty exacted by torturous apparatuses solidifies his antislavery notions akin to the abolitionists. I found instead, that the book is skillfully written and covers a variety of topics within this subject area, including information about the building of ships in the slave trade, the ports at which the traders docked and did business in and the kinds of crew that worked on these ships. Sometimes the profits were so enticing, sloops that could carry only 30 captives made the voyage. His vignettes of first person experiences as merchant, Captain, Mate, trader, sailor and jailor are terrifying in their matter-of-fact acceptance of the daily horror. While clearly there was a common theme throughout the book, not having a common character or continuous story line failed to hold my interest. “Riland also noted the chains to bind the men slaves aboard the Liberty, and here he touched upon another essential part of a prison ship; the hardware of bondage. I actually listened to this book as an audio, so my experience may be warped. But this is a riveting historiography. I found this to be quite a good review of the history and experience of people involved in slave transportation from the early 1700s to the early 1800s. The stories of the captains, paying travellers (there was one! James, Robin Blackburn and others, which positions slavery as central to the historical emergence of a capitalist Western hemisphere -- rather than an unfortunate exception to a linear progressivist historical template. Much is known of the slave trade and the American plantation complex, but little of the ships that made it all possible. At the beginning of the Middle Passage, captains loaded on board the vessel a multiethnic collection of Africans, who would, in the American port, become "black people" or a "negro race." Notes: The Slave Ship: A Human History, Marcus Rediker. He discusses with brutal detail the devastation caused by the slave trade -- whether on the lives of the Africans, the captains, the sailors, merchants, the insurers. Full of intriguing detail of ship mechanics and voyage logistics, Rediker has crafted an extraordinary account of the technology that underpinned the trade in humans. I actually listened to this book as an audio, so my experience may be warped. So there was this slaver visiting a village and hoping to foster good relationship with the leader, so as to buy slaves from him in the future, Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d’études mondiales in Paris. Full of intriguing detail of ship mechanics and voyage logistics, Rediker has crafted an extraordinary account of the technology that underpinned the trade in humans. Difficulty reading, yes— but so very worthwhile and well done. Of particular note is his emphasis on detailing the lives of individuals in this drama such as an adult female slave who is drowned by lowering her into the sea on a chair by a slaver captain who subsequently laments the loss of a fine chair. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published Rediker is thorough in his account of the business of buying people; from shore to shore he gives the reader a vivid idea of the horrors so many endured. The manner in which the people died, however is typically glossed over in other slave histories, and I think Rediker did a fine delicate job painting such a grim picture. Well researched, but one quickly gets the idea from the multiple examples that this was a shameful era. “At the beginning of the voyage, captains hired on a motley crew of sailors, who would, on the coast of Africa, become "white men." The The Slave Ship: A Human History Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. In the midst of Africans, the crew members were spontaneously held as ‘white’ creating a bridge in regards to skin color and subsequently manifesting the conception of racism. A nod... To see what your friends thought of this book. Rediker suggests that this should be the case, if historians are to avoid what he calls the occlusion of “pervasive torture and terror” through overly quantitative approaches or other narratives which do not foreground the sheer horror of it all. Painstakingly researched, carefully and compassionately he details a subject still very sensitive to most. Rediker is very methodical in his approach, selecting one or the other elements of inquiry, examining it in detail and then, movi. This book is extremely difficult to read. Hence being on board and seeing the extent of cruelty exacted by torturous apparatuses solidifies his antislavery notions akin to the abolitionists. How can we fight against them? For me, the primary value of this book was in contemplating, as the author states in the introduction, "horrors which have always been, and remain, central to the making of global capitalism." In “The Slave Ship”, Marcus Rediker undertakes a thoroughgoing examination of all aspects, both human and material, social and political, of the instruments of the “Middle Passage” that in thousands of voyages across the Atlantic ferried over 12.3 million human beings from …
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