One of the earliest skills undergraduate candidates of African American history (and other interdisciplinary subjects) have to acquire is the ability to make a distinction between “slavery” and “the slave trade” as different components of US (and Atlantic) history. Whilst this distinction is undoubtedly vitally important, there is a tendency for it to be overemphasised, and it can often serve to mask correlating features between the two subjects. Within the breadth of this essay, it is my intention to demonstrate that there are four characteristics of slave life (in both the Caribbean and the southern United States) which appear frequently within accounts of the slave trade, and these are the ties that bind the two together. These characteristics are, simply put: rebellion and insurrection; the expression of hardships through song and dance; forced removal away from loved ones; and the rape of black women. The fact these four characteristics endure through the slave trade and into slavery gives them a culturally significant place within the realm of African American history. Finally, as a way of bringing these four facets together, I will conclude by illustrating, with the aid of Alexander Falconbridge’s An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (which also serves as a primary text throughout this paper), how the hereditary nature of slavery in the United States made these four characteristics even more dangerous as they became naturalised characteristics and organic occupational qualities of the people they were associated with.
The most enduring image of the slave trade is that of the tightly-packed slave ship. The Brookes’ print, which galvanised support for the abolitionist movement by visualising the inhumane conditions of the slave ship, today inadvertently serves to subvert many of the seedlings of African American culture. When the weather was fair during the Middle Passage, slaves were brought up on deck to exercise, eat, take in some fresh air, and occasionally bath. It is here where we can see the beginnings of African American customs, both in terms of culture and of the modern linguistic descriptions of the people themselves. “African American” implies people or peoples of America, of African origin. The physical connection is made between the “American” and the “African” by the passage of the slave ship: it serves as the bridge across the Atlantic Ocean, and thus it acts as a platform for the birth of an African American cultural standpoint.
Rebellion and Insurrection
Slave rebellions were much feared throughout the South before the civil war, and the same is true aboard slavers during the era of the slave trade. In general terms, the ratio of black slaves to free white men aboard slave ships was similar but not the same as the ratio of white men to black men throughout the West Indies: in each case, the black population was larger than the number of white men. Aboard the Danish slave ship Fredensborg, which sailed from Copenhagen in 1767-8, the ratio of slaves to crewmen was 8.83:1 during the Middle Passage.[i] Robert Harms suggests that the ratio of slaves to European settlers on the French island of Martinique was not quite as extreme: slaves’ outnumbered free people by nearly four to one in 1732.[ii] Aboard the Fredensborg, Captain Ferentz had enough foot irons for 300 slaves, but his decision to carry only 265 could have been made for any one of a multitude of reasons, though a combination of the following motives seems most likely: the desire of the Company that the slaves arrive in as good condition as possible;[iii] the fear that carrying 300 slaves would greatly increase the chance of a successful rebellion; the belief that 300 slaves would be too much of a strain on the ship’s resources;[iv] or the desire of the captain to maintain as humane a ship as possible during the Middle Passage. Whatever his reasoning behind only carrying 265 slaves, the ration of almost nine slaves to each free crewman still posed great danger. Yet with the threat of sickness and disease ever present, it was possible for the ratio of captives to seamen to alter drastically during the Middle Passage. Aboard the Fredensborg, 24 slaves and three crewmen died during the 78-day Atlantic journey, giving an adjusted ratio of 8.93:1. Other ships were far more decimated by sickness, and Falconbridge tells of ships which arrived in the New World with as much as two thirds of their cargo having died during the crossing of the Atlantic.[v] Such a high mortality rate amongst the slaves inevitably reduces the risk of a successful rebellion beginning. The treatment of the ship’s crew was rarely, if at all, better than the treatment of the slaves, and thus the number of seamen could be just as decimated as the number of captives. Falconbridge also writes of a ship belonging to Miles Barber which had lost all its crew except three.[vi]
Resistance to slavery on the plantation was a diverse pursuit, and likewise on the slave ship it took many different guises. The vast majority (if not all) of these forms of resistance aboard a slaver took place whilst on deck: it was in this space that resistance to bondage proved to be most communicative with regard to the slaves’ loss of liberty. When the time to feed the slaves came about, many refused to eat their rations, and Falconbridge details how certain foods which were disliked by the majority of Africans would be thrown into the sea: “most of the slaves have such an aversion to the horse beans that, unless they are narrowly watched, when fed upon deck, they will throw them overboard.”[vii] If the ship was still near the coast, then slaves would often risk their lives to get back to shore by jumping overboard if they were given the chance. The “house” which was erected on deck and kept the sexes apart also served the purpose of stopping the slaves leaping overboard.[viii]
Such issues as these are minor in comparison to an insurrection involving the seizure of guns and weapons by the captives, but such issues were nevertheless problems for the crew to deal with. As Robert Harms has observed, crew members doubled as prison guards, [ix] but they can also be thought of as overseers, essentially serving the same function as an overseer on a plantation. In the case of the plantation, the overseer is accountable to the planter; in the case of the slave ship, the crewmen are answerable to the captain. In each case, a combination of punishment and reward kept the subjects in order. Similarly, if the captives did engage in rebellion by throwing the horse beans overboard, as detailed earlier from the Falconbridge account, then hot coals, Falconbridge also tells us, were often placed near the lips of the insubordinate slaves, “to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats, of forcing them to swallow the coals, if they any longer persisted.”[x] Harms’ later observation that the hierarchical command structure on board slave ships meant that a great deal depended upon the will, personality, competence and sanity of the captain can also be applied to the role and functioning of the planter upon the plantation.[xi] One important difference worth noting here, however, is that planters, especially in the West Indies, could be absent from their New World plantations for a considerable period of time; it was not uncommon for West Indian planters to head back to England for ten to twelve months at a time and leave the running of the plantation to either their wives or, more likely, their trusted overseers.[xii] Such an excursion is simply not possible for a captain aboard a slave ship during the crossing of the Atlantic.
The fear of an insurrection aboard a slave ship was so great that preliminary measures were usually taken to make it possible to put down such an uprising quickly, should one occur. Falconbridge informs us, for example, how the partition which kept the male slaves from the female captives had small holes built into it, “wherein blunderbusses are fixed, and sometimes a cannon [because] it is found very convenient for quelling the insurrections that now and then happen.”[xiii] Along with disease and pirates, insurrections were one of the most worrisome aspects of the triangular journey, but exactly how often did slave captains have to put down a rebellion? During the eighteenth century, 284 vessels initially sailing out of either Danish, French or English ports suffered an incident categorised as either “a slave insurrection” or “a planned insurrection was thwarted.”[xiv] As tales of insurrections and attempted insurrections spread amongst slave trading captains, it is almost certain the fear of such events spread with them. Modern statistical studies suggest that about 30% of shipboard rebellions took place on high sea.[xv] How and why is this the case?
Prior to answering these questions directly, let us look again briefly at Falconbridge’s account, as he speaks rather candidly of slave uprisings:
as very few of the negroes can so far brook the loss of their liberty … they are ever upon the watch to take advantage of the least negligence in their oppressors. Insurrections are frequently the consequence; which are seldom suppressed without much bloodshed. Sometimes they are successful and the whole ship’s company is cut off.[xvi]Whilst below deck, slaves remained shackled together in pairs, making an uprising there very unlikely. Further discouragement would also be garnered from the conditions of their captivity there, which consisted of temperatures of over 100 degrees (especially if the ocean was rough as this would result in the air vents being closed[xvii]), and vomit, mucus, blood and faeces spread across the deck as, in Falconbridge’s words, to make it look like a slaughter house.[xviii]
The only possible opportunity for rebellion amongst the slaves presented itself when they came on deck. Some slave captains, however, did not share a similar view; they considered an uprising unlikely as they thought the Africans realised that they had no way of navigating the ship back to their homeland or to safety. As Robert Harms has written about the French ship the Diligent:
Now that they were on the high seas, the crew of the Diligent became less strict about shackling the men. Many slaving captains believed that the captives were unlikely to rebel on high sea because they would be unable to sail the ship back to land if the rebellion succeeded. Even if the rebellious slaves kept some crew members alive to sail the ship, they could not trust them to actually sail to their desired destination.[xix]Similarly, Svalesen’s analysis reveals similar difficulties: navigation of the ship would be a severe challenge for the slaves, and would also be compounded by their limited understanding of geography, not to mention their inadequate knowledge of winds, sea currents and weather patterns; should landfall have been reached, however, there was always the risk of falling into the grasp of enemies once more and being sold into bondage again. So whilst riots could break out, the chance of freedom was small.[xx]
Alexander Falconbridge ends his Account with “A Short Description of such Parts of the Coast of Guinea,” within which insurrections and rebellious Africans feature again. When detailing the inhabitants of the Gold Coast, Falconbridge asserts that they are “very bold and resolute, and insurrections happen more frequently among them, when on shipboard, than amongst the negroes of any other part of the coast.”[xxi] What Falconbridge demonstrates here is an understanding of diverse cultural identities amongst the inhabitants to of Africa. Falconbridge does not treat Africans as one generic people, but rather, by ascribing one set of people as being more “bold and resolute” than Africans from other regions, he shows a potential understanding of cultural nuances which would, via the slave trade, be carried over into the southern United States, the Caribbean, and other parts of the New World.
Singing of Hardships
These texts by Falconbridge and Harms reveal the importance of vocal expression and expression through the medium of dance, often with musical accompaniment. Robert Harms informs us that advice was once given to slave captains to purchase musical instruments from the slaves’ homeland, prior to departing Africa.[xxii] What this suggests is a deep understanding of differing cultural tastes between the music of Europe and the music of Africa, although Harms also says that French slavers carried accordion players as standard.[xxiii] Whether these musicians played this or a hurdy-gurdy, they were probably chosen because they could produce a sound akin to that of a one man band, requiring no other accompaniment.
Regardless of the specifics, there appears to be some conception among European traders of what Olaudah Equiano would explain in his narrative, namely that “every great event, such as a triumphant return from battle, or other cause of public rejoicing is celebrated in public dances, which are accompanied with songs and music suited to the occasion.”[xxiv] The ceremonial value of dancing and singing among the majority of African peoples would have been apparent to early European travellers and traders. As Fabre has noted, whether it was “ceremonial or celebratory, dramatic or theatrical, parodic or satiric, [dancing] was pervasive everywhere.”[xxv] Such physical exercise would assume new meanings and fresh significance aboard slave ships.
It appears from Falconbridge’s Account that English slavers paid little attention to elaborate musical instruments such as accordions, employing as they did a single drum to function as musical supplement for the slaves.[xxvi] Both Harms and Falconbridge highlight the significance of dancing as an occupation to maintain the health of the captives. Falconbridge’s eye witness account emphasises that the dancing on deck was for exercise, suggesting it was something which the captives no longer entered into out of their own free will but were rather forced into it by the powers that be: indeed, dancing without sufficient agility would often result in a flogging for the guilty slave.[xxvii] Visually, it is difficult to imagine such dancing appearing as beautiful if the slaves remained shackled together whilst on deck, but even if they were granted the free use of their limbs, it is unlikely they were able to achieve much aesthetically, having been forced to suffer such horrific conditions below deck and being plied with insufficient food and water. In addition to these limitations, the pitching and rolling of the vessel would have made energetic, pleasing dancing difficult, if not impossible, for the fittest and healthiest human beings, let alone enslaved Africans who feared the white people who had captured them would soon eat them once they became fat enough.
We need not consider that the dancing of the slaves on the deck of the slave ship was dancing which was void of significance. Harms and Falconbridge consider the dancing only monocausally (namely that the slaves were forced into dancing to “maintain” their health), and neither man wastes ink musing as to whether or not the movement of the slaves was expressive of their feelings. Fabre expresses ideas about slave ship dancing as communication of personal hardships most succinctly. Dance, she says,
…stages the various moods and moments of the slave ship experience - the temptation to surrender and despair, the suffering and humiliations, the awakening of energies, the call for daring or insurgent acts. Improvised, and yet purposeful, … all moods, emotions and ideas are made physically present through the body in carefully orchestrated gestures that suggest … certain basic African rhythms; the body, that was so central to the lived and felt Middle Passage experience, is entrusted with the task of representation and figuration, just as it also must perform the acts the dance may induce.[xxviii]
Aside from the forced dancing, slaves were also encouraged to sing, though this should also be understood as an activity which was entered into without coercive force by the captives. Whilst Robert Harms tells how singing was supposed to be done by the slaves as they scrubbed the slave deck,[xxix] Alexander Falconbridge informs us that “their songs are generally, as may naturally be expected, melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native country.”[xxx] Between the two, we have the beginnings of one of the features of future plantation fields: African voices singing “sorrow songs”, to borrow Du Bois’s phrase, whilst toiling away under the guise of the white man. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk closes its final paragraph, “Of the Sorrow Songs,” with a few bars of music from a spiritual called “Let Us Cheer the Weary Traveller.” The ability to express feelings and emotions through dance and song aboard slavers would stand African captives in good stead. What the slaves brought with them across the Atlantic was the ability to communicate through song and dance; future generations would use these tools of communication to escape bondage and gain freedom during the life of Harriet Tubman. Actions, which in Africa were expressive of celebrations, festivities and community-orientated “events” such as births, marriages and deaths, were carried over to the New World and passed down to future generations, and became the ways by which slaves could release themselves from captivity.
Forced Removal Away from Loved Ones
What is clear from the connections between the singing aboard the slavers and the singing on the plantations is that traits enforced upon the captives by captains of the slave ships served as precursors to similar future events. Similarly, early on in his account of the slave trade, Alexander Falconbridge notes how a partition was erected on the deck of the slave ship, which served to keep the sexes apart.[xxxi] This physical separation is dehumanising as humanity of course depends upon the mingling of the sexes to prolong. Nevertheless, it bears the same function as what would happen in the coming centuries when slaveholders would sell individual slaves, regardless of the family connections that particular slave might have to persons remaining on his estate. In both cases there is a breaking up of human bonds; on the one hand it is done along lines of sex, and on the other it is done more randomly. Whilst slaves sold out of their family units were often let go by their masters for financial reasons, they were also sold away to avoid potential rebellions, which was part of the logic behind separating male slaves from female slaves on the slave ships. The breaking of ties with loved ones and family members was one of the most painful elements of both slavery and the slave trade, and one which caused the slaves great emotional pain. For most, the Middle Passage followed on from such painful separations, and on initial inspection it may appear to the historian that the deck of the slave ship could not possibly be represented as a site for the sale of slaves. In the coming paragraphs, it will be demonstrated that removal from loved ones was actually associated with the decks of slavers, although admittedly not during the crossing of the Atlantic and only either in the New World or on the West Coast of Africa.
With the latter of these two in mind, Robert Harms depicts how “European traders sometimes kidnapped and enslaved Africans who came to their ships to sell food and supplies. British private traders from Bristol and Liverpool were notorious for doing this, and French ships did it as well.”[xxxii] Men who were trying to support their wives and children by selling goods were procured for sale themselves. Indeed, the Diligent first comes into contact with the slave trade in Africa at the Dutch fort at Axim, as the director of the stronghold offers to Captain Mary a single African boy, but a price could not be agreed upon and the transaction fell through.[xxxiii] Alexander Falconbridge’s An Account correlates with this, as he notes how Africans came on board in small and large groups.[xxxiv] With such ruthless means of procuring their cargo, it is no wonder Falconbridge also tells how the arrival of slave ships destroyed the peace and confidence of coastal villages and settlements.[xxxv] As Olaudah Equiano’s slave narrative testifies, a slave could be bought and sold countless times before arriving at the West Coast. This of course meant that making such a long and uncertain journey across such a large distance of land was very likely to sell the individual slave away from loved ones before ever arriving within sight of the European slave ship.
Once the slave ships docked in the New World, their cargo had to be sold on to buyers, and here again the chaos of such transactions is recorded by Falconbridge. Slaves were often sold by scramble:
On a day appointed, the negroes were landed, and placed together in a large yard, belonging to the merchants to whom the ship was consigned. As soon as the hour agreed on arrived, the doors of the yard were suddenly thrown open, and in rushed a considerable number of purchasers, with all the ferocity of brutes. Some instantly seized such of the negroes as they could conveniently lay hold of with their hands. Others, being prepared with several handkerchiefs tied together, encircled with these as many as they were able … It is scarcely possible to describe the confusion of which this mode of selling is productive. It likewise causes much animosity among the purchasers, who … fall out and quarrel with each other. The poor astonished Negroes were so much terrified by these proceedings, that several of them, through fear, climber over the walls of the court yard, and ran wild about the town.[xxxvi]The terror of being sold on to another human, to becoming the property of someone else, is usurped by such an unruly method of trade as Falconbridge describes here. In the following paragraph, Falconbridge describes a similar sale by scramble in Kingston, Jamaica, with the only significant difference being that the scramble occurred on the deck of the ship: the sales of the ship were dropped over the captives, so as to stop buyers from picking and choosing which Africans they wanted, and once the signal was given the sales were lifted and the scramble ensued.[xxxvii] In such a situation, the deck of the slave ship assumes another menacing facet to its character. The place where, during the Middle Passage, captives were forced to dance, where they were fed, and where they had opportunities to rebel now became the place where they would be purchased into slavery for the rest of their lives.
The Rape of Black Women
The horrors faced by men aboard slavers were documented in the only account of the Middle Passage which has survived the test of time. Olaudah Equiano’s slave narrative gives us some first hand details of what it was like to cross the Atlantic Ocean as cargo. Nevertheless, even this text offers only subjective descriptions of the horrors faced by the male slaves as Equiano was treated more as a youth slave than an adult male slave (hence the reason his text has not been given prominence in this paper). Equiano’s time on deck is notable for many observations of various goings-on, and serves as to positively cross-reference much that I have extracted so far from the first-hand account of Falconbridge and the contemporary material of Harms’ and Svalesen’s work; what Equiano’s narrative is completely vacant of, however, is any detail regarding the life of female slaves.
Alexander Falconbridge gives a general idea of what proportion a single shipment of slaves was made up of women: female slaves seldom exceeded one third of the whole number.[xxxviii] The reasons for this are clear: women slaves would not be as useful on labour intensive sugar, cotton and indigo plantations as their male counterparts, and were better suited to domestic servitude. As the demand for house slaves is unlikely to have been as great as the demand for field slaves, captains of slavers tried to supply fewer female slaves to the New World and more field hands.
Domestic servitude on the plantation located the female slave within the master’s own house; some of her daily or weekly tasks would undoubtedly carry her into the master’s bedroom, where his physical, social and hierarchical power, which was unquestionable, could allow him to make whatever perverse sexual advances he wished. As remarkable as it sounds, a strikingly similar difficulty arose on board slavers, countless decades before. Harms tells how female slaves were given the task of cleaning the officers quarters, which made them easy prey for sexual advances, as did the officer’s easy access to the women’s compartment.[xxxix] Harms also illustrates that there was a distinct awareness amongst the outfitters of French slavers of the possibility of sexual relations occurring between white crewmen and black female slaves, as strict instructions were given to captains with regard to who was allowed to enter the female slave quarters and who had to be present. Nevertheless, French documents of the period are almost completely silent on the subject. This is a similar situation as to what would develop in the coming 125 years around master slave sexual relations in the slave states of America: masters would sleep with their slaves, the community would know of it, and yet very few people, if anyone, would openly write or discuss the problem.[xl]
The abolitionists, however, were open to truth-telling. They were keen to tell of the sexual evils within the slave trade which would shock all people of the late eighteenth century, whether they lived in the New World or the Old. Falconbridge, for example, did not mince his words. “On board some ships, the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure,” Falconbridge said, whilst “the officers are permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure, and sometimes are guilty of such brutal excesses, as disgrace human nature.”[xli]
So what we have here is institutionalised acceptance of, and ambivalence to, the rape of black women. As slavery developed throughout the South, society turned its back on the sexual abuse of black female slaves in order to maintain a “civilised” manifestation. The central obstacle to any meaningful reform was that the black female slaves who were abused were being abused by the people who owned them. And as they were the property of their abusers, external forces were unlikely to be able to help them in their plight. The female slaves aboard slavers during the eighteenth century were soon to be sold on, and it appears from Falconbridge’s shocking observations that the officers made the most of the presence of female slaves during the Middle Passage to fulfil their carnal desires. During both slavery and the slave trade women were sexually abused; and during both periods there was no relief quickly forthcoming. “Violence could also, and often did, assume sexual dimensions,” wrote Paul Lovejoy, with
rape being common. Sexual violence was extended in Islamic lands to castration, but there was essentially no difference in the ways in which women, and boys onboard ship, were treated — the sexual and personal identity of the individual was denied and only existed for the pleasure of the slave owner or his proxy.[xlii]
The horror of rape was essentially the same for the black female slave, whether it happened on the slave ship or the plantation. The only significant difference between the two is that the latter was often geared towards the increase of the slave population if it occurred in the southern United States. Nevertheless, the initial revulsion of the unwanted sexual advance of the overseer, whether a slave captain or a slave master, is clearly understandable in both instances.
Conclusion
And so the parallels of the slave trade and slavery are such. But the nature of the slave trade is different from that of slavery as slavery is a state of existence resulting from the former commercial enterprise. A close look at Alexander Falconbridge’s preconceptions of slavery within Africa underscores why slavery in the United States was to become such a powerful institution.
When Falconbridge sets off to Africa, he carries with him the mistaken preconception that African kings breed slaves for bondage. Once he gets there, Falconbridge finds this is not the case:
Previous to me being in this employ[ment], I entertained a belief as many others have done, that the kings and principal men breed negroes for sale, as we do cattle. During the different times I was in the country, I took no little pains to satisfy myself in this particular; but notwithstanding I made many inquiries, I was not able to obtain the least intelligence of this being the case, which it is more than probable I should have done, had such a practice prevailed. All the information I could procure, confirms me in the belief, that to kidnapping, and to crimes … the slave trade owes its chief support.[xliii] (emphasis original)Falconbridge goes on to highlight kidnapping as the exclusive mode by which slaves are procured, and he proposes a hypothesis that virtually no slaves are taken by means of wars among the Africans because he, as the surgeon of the slave ship, was responsible for checking the bodily health of the slaves, and not once did he find any men with recent wounds.[xliv]
It is the kidnapping of free Africans which Falconbridge detests so much; kidnapping serves as his motive for publishing his narrative of the slave trade. The implied meaning of this, however, is that if slaves had been bred by kings and “principal men” for sale, as he initially thought they were, then the crimes of the Europeans would not be half so bad. Consider once again Robert Harms’s detailing of how European traders took it upon themselves to kidnap and enslave Africans who ventured out to the European vessels to sell food and supplies. The African is seized by the European and reduced to a state of bondage, and, furthermore, is taken away from the family who he is trying to support by selling goods and supplies to the Europeans. Should that African be fortunate enough to be alive when the slaver reaches the New World, he will be sold again, possibly by the scramble method, to a planter of the New World, and any comrades he has met amongst his fellow slaves during the Middle Passage will be lost to him again. There are differences between the first set of ties which the African has broken in Africa and the second set of ties he has broken in the New World, and it is not my intention to be blind to such differences. Indeed, one variation is clear: the African initially passes from freedom into slavery, whereas with the second altering of his condition he is passing from slavery to slavery, as his master moves from being the captain of a slave ship to the planter of the New World. Yet in the same way that scholars have, in recent years, called for a definition of African American culture that transcends the binary categories of oppressor and victim,[xlv] we should look to the similarities of events such as this to consider the Middle Passage as being a journey of African characteristics and cultures into the new World.
I began this paper with an explanation of how the enduring image of the tightly packed slave ship had grown to dominate the ways in which we as scholars, and popular culture as well for that matter, think about and perceive the Middle Passage. The tight packing of slaves below deck is representative of the savagery of the transatlantic slave trade. This is a point which is, I think, quite rightly beyond the realms of reasonable discussion. The deck itself, however, represents that space in between the savage and the civilised; the fact that it offers the chance of rebellion means that it represents the opportunity to escape from, and fight back against, being held in unreasonable and cruelly savage conditions.
Notes
[i] Leif Svalesen, The Slave Ship Fredensborg, Trans. Pat Shaw and Selena Winsnes, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2000): 102. The figure of 265 includes 9 male slaves who were used as deck slaves, and although they functioned as crew members, they were themselves an added security risk and any successful mutiny amongst the slaves was likely to involve them in some way.
[ii] Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade, (New York: Basic Books, 2002): 328. More thorough research has been done with regard to slave populations of the New World by Philip D. Curtin. Martinique, Curtin suggests, had a slave population of 55,700 just four years later in 1736, which would give a ratio of very nearly five slaves to each European settler. Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969): 78.
[iii] Svalesen, The Slave Ship Fredensborg, 102.
[iv] Ibid., 119.
[v] Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, (London: J Phillips, 1788): 29. All quotations from this text have been orthographically adjusted into contemporary English, so for example <> has been used instead of < ſ >.
[vi] Ibid., 48.
[vii] Ibid., 22.
[viii] Ibid., 7.
[ix] Harms, The Diligent, 300.
[x] Falconbridge, An Account, 23.
[xi] Harms, The Diligent, 303.
[xii] For a good study of absenteeism among planters that is both concise and detailed, see: Lowell Joseph Ragatz, “Absentee Landlordism in the British Caribbean, 1750-1833,” in Agricultural History, 5, 1 (Jan. 1931): 7-24.
[xiii] Falconbridge, An Account, 6.
[xiv] The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Database
[xv] Harms, The Diligent, 315.
[xvi] Falconbridge, An Account, 30.
[xvii] Ibid., 24.
[xviii] Ibid., 25.
[xix] Harms, The Diligent, 314.
[xx] Svalesen, The Slave Ship Fredensborg, 115.
[xxi] Falconbridge, An Account, 54.
[xxii] Harms, The Diligent, 295.
[xxiii] Harms, The Diligent, 295. This claim is somewhat suspect, as prototype accordions were not invented until the 1820’s, and yet Harms gets his information from a Universal Dictionary of Commerce published (in French) in Paris in 1723. See: “accordion” The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Michael Kennedy and Joyce Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of Manchester. 7 April 2010
[xxiv] Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, (New York: Dover Thrift, 1999): 12.
[xxv] Genevieve Fabre, “The Slave Ship Dance,” in Maria Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates Jr and Carl Pedersen (eds), Black Imagination and the Middle Passage, (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1999): 34. [xxvi] Falconbridge, An Account, 23.
[xxvii] Ibid., 23.
[xxviii] Fabre, “The Slave Ship Dance,” 39.
[xxix] Harms, The Diligent, 310.
[xxx] Falconbridge, An Account, 23.
[xxxi] Falconbridge, An Account, 6.
[xxxii] Harms, The Diligent, 122.
[xxxiii] Ibid., 129.
[xxxiv] Falconbridge, An Account, 8.
[xxxv] Ibid., 9.
[xxxvi] Falconbridge, An Account, 34.
[xxxvii] Ibid., 34-5.
[xxxviii] Ibid., 12.
[xxxix] Harms, The Diligent, 312.
[xl] The silence around mixed race slaves is humorously illustrated in Caroline Lee Hentz, The Planter’s Northern Bride, (Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1854). Moreland, a Southern planter, constantly has trusted “mulatto” slave Albert by his side throughout. Albert’s mixed race genealogy is completely ignored by Hentz, as if the subject of mulatto slaves is completely divorced from the subject of white/black sexual relations.
[xli] Falconbridge, An Account, 23-4.
[xlii] Paul E. Lovejoy, “The “Middle Passage”: The Enforced Migration of Africans Across the Atlantic.”
[xliii] Falconbridge, An Account, 15.
[xliv] Ibid., 15-6.
[xlv] Maria Diedrich, et al, “The Middle Passage between History and Fiction: Introductory Remarks,” in Black Imagination and the Middle Passage, 7.
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