The story of countless fatalities and slaves being traded into dehumanization. There was a woman captured from her home into a pungency of fear along with millions. This “epic drama” lasted over the 400 hundred years of the slave trade, taking 12.4 million people through the “Middle Passage” to be sold (Rediker 4-5). It was considered a genocide with 1.8 million deaths. Marcus Rediker, professor and graduate from the University of Pittsburgh relays the story of the slave trade, a treacherous happening through the 17th and 18th century. He captures these events as a magnificent drama, letting people know what kind of hell the slave trade really was. Rediker mentions W.E.B DuBois who was an African-American scholar-activist who claimed …show more content…
He talks about people such as the Danish, French, English and how they all had their “spheres of influence” that helped the African coast’s trade continue to be “open and competitive” (77-78). Senegambia, Sierre Leone and the Windward Coast, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, and West-Central Africa were a part of this sphere, as the trading of the slaves went on between the regions. These slaves were key to the institution of slavery as it helped African societies continue to expand with the Atlantic slave trade (77). Olaudah Equiano was one of those traded. Rediker points him out almost directly as he was ripped off his life at only age 11. The experiences on the ship “was central to his life story, as to millions of others” (108). Rediker explains the astonishment and terror in the slave ship and how all were stripped of their humanity, but Equiano had this saying that he came to understand, Igwe bu ke, meaning “multitude is strength” that replenished the idea of survival below the slave …show more content…
But if a historian, scholar of some sort or someone interested in the aspects of the slave trade, it would definitely be a great read. Rediker is great at giving vigorous detail that makes the reader feel more a part of the slaves history. He dives in deep to what it was really like to build the ships, how slaves would be taken and how they would be treated below deck on a slave ship. Rediker makes sure to make every point clear and in detail; even with the little things in the book like Captain’s and the suffering they would feel by leaving their wives at home. Rediker knows how to address his arguments on both capitalism and the terror of the slave trade, making sure to give it the dramatization it needs. As said before, the audience definitely points more towards scholars and people who are interested in this type of reading. If a high schooler was really keen on a read like this, then it would be a great lesson for them. In the book, Rediker gives enough detail on every topic so it is not needed to have any background knowledge whatsoever, but a little knowledge on the subject of slaves would not hurt before reading. A few reviews from Amazon have talked greatly and not so about Marcus Rediker and his book. D. Gabrielle had said, “Excellent book. Thoughtful, well written, and well researched, but also exciting and absolutely enchanting to read.” While on the other hand someone said, “The
He mainly focused on the 1700’s when Britain controlled most of the slave trade throughout the world. During the book, Rediker informs the reader about the tortured slaves as they were shipped from West Africa to the new world. Marcus Rediker, a professor at the University of Pittsburg, taught history and starting researching the slave trade by
In the novel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party, by MT Anderson, follows a young boy named Octavian. This book is set in Boston in the 1700s. As a 13-year-old, Octavian’s mother is bought as a slave by Mr. Gitney, the head of the college, as a 2-for-1 deal. Mr. Gitney is conducting an experiment at his college, the College of Lucidity. He is trying to figure out if an African American could be as intelligent as white royalty if they are provided with the same education.
In the documents “Considering the Evidence: Voices from the Slave Trade” it shows how the Atlantic slave trade was an enormous enterprise and enormously significant in modern world history. In document 15.1 - The Journey to Slavery it talks about the voice of an individual victim of the slave trade known as Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was taken from his home and sold into the slave trade. He worked for three different families while in the slave trade but what is different about him is that he learned to read and write while being a slave. He traveled extensively as a seaman aboard one of his masters' ships, and was allowed to buy his freedom in 1766.
What was never presented was the point of view from the African Americans because it was seemingly dismissed. It was eye-opening to read about the experience from an African’s perspective because it brought a whole new light to my understanding of what it meant to be a slave and the struggles black Americans face here in the US, even
In Equiano's personal slave narrative, "The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African", Equiano flips the idea that the African people are backwards and barbaric, thus ripe for slavery, by demonstrating his personal exceptionalism through his literacy to show that it is truly the white people who are backwards and barbaric through their own hypocrisy. This reversal that Equiano demonstrates in his slave narrative shows that the savagery of African people exists as a misconception and makes the reader fully grasp the need to abolish slavery and any inequality present. On page seventy-eight, Equiano uses first person pronouns like 'I', 'my', and 'me' to separate himself from the other African people and whites around him. This separation that Equiano creates demonstrates his exceptionalism as an African slave.
He had seen firsthand how African Americans experienced brutality growing up. He had seen this when Jess Alexander Helms a police officer brutalized a black woman, and dragged her to the jail house. He had explained it as “the way a caveman would club and drag his sexual prey”. This shows how little rights African Americans had in these days because he was unable to do anything. All of this happened while other African American individuals walked away hurriedly.
Could there be contrasts and likenesses between two accounts composed by two unique individuals? Confronting various types of afflictions? It is conceivable to discover contrasts and likenesses in two stories relating two various types of occasions? Imprisonment accounts were main stream with pursuers in both America and the European continents. Bondage stories of Americans relate the encounters of whites subjugated by Native Americans and Africans oppressed by early American settlers.
Marcus Rediker’s The Slave Ship: A Human History was about more than just the process of trading slaves, how the slaves travelled from Point A to Point B and what the traders did to the slaves during the trip. Rediker’s focus remained mainly on the aspect of the humanity of the slaves and the relationships that were forged between the people aboard the ship. Often it is forgotten that the slaves that were kidnapped and sold into slavery were, in fact, human beings. Instead the focus is directed towards statistics and individual events that happen aboard the ships rather than the names of the slaves and their backgrounds.
Alexander Falconbridge served as a surgeon on the ships that transported slaves through the middle passage. He managed to only make four voyages between 1780 and 1787 due to the harsh circumstances he was witnessing, which ultimately led him to write An Account of the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage was the hardest and most dangerous part of the voyage for any slave transported out of Africa. The article carefully describes the strenuous conditions the slaves were in while being in the ships. An analysis of Alexander Falconbridge’s An Account of the Middle Passage reveals how this surgeon’s perspective aided the progression of the abolition movement by showcasing a new perspective of the Middle Passage, and how his purpose was to inform the general public on how dreadful these
In this paper, I will discuss the similarities, and the differences between “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” and “Journal of the First Voyage to America”. Both stories are trying to persuade the readers to reach their personal goal. However, there are a lot of differences between these two stories: different reader, different purpose,... Starting with, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”. The author in his writing is talking about the living condition of the slaves on the ship.
Being enslaved was not an easy job for African Americans. African Americans survived slavery through their connection with their culture. They then went on to contribute to the economic and social development of the South and America. African Americans survived the institution of slavery and Africanized the American South. They helped free themselves by sticking together as a family, resisting, as well as wanting slavery to change.
In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.
17.1 Captivity and Enslavement, Olaudah Equiano, the interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself 1. What are Equiano’s impressions of the white men on the ship and their treatment of the slaves? How does this treatment reflect the slave traders’ primary concerns? Equiano’s first impression of these white men is a feeling of uncertainty and sorrow for the future. As his story goes on Equiano is afraid of these white men, but also he is wishing to end it all because of the conditions and treatment of the slaves.
The detailed descriptions included in primary sources, along with the descriptive and emotional illustrations included in graphic history are crucial elements in studying and understanding the process and history of the transatlantic slave trade. Rafe Blaufarb and Liz Clarke tie both of these together to help readers truly understand this historic tragedy in the book, Inhuman Traffick: The International Struggle Against the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Although different than the standard book that may be used, that simply spews information out in an uncreative and somewhat boring way, this book is a tool that can be chosen in classrooms to teach different aspects of the slave trade. Working together, the primary sources and graphic history
The Black Man’s Burden In the late-nineteen century, the term new imperialism became an element of politics implemented by many European powers to impose their supremacy around the globe. Between 1870 and 1914, as a result of the Great Depression (1873-1879), imperialistic powers such as Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium, constructed colonies and protectorates in Asia and Africa in order to exploit their resources and their labor . In 1880, France and Britain led European nations in the “scramble of Africa,” which divided the continent from 1880 to 1914. After the king of Belgium Leopold II conquered most of the Congo River with the excuse of promoting Christianity and civilization, other European nations caught “African fever.”