Slave Ship
The “floating dungeon” is the site of the most gruesome occurrences in human history for it acted as a vessel of extreme cruelty. The slave ship symbolizes the facilitation of slavery since every party in the slave trade converged at the sea. The ships took African captives from the shores of Africa and transported them into the new world to the Western businessmen. The voyage allowed for cruelty and torture involving depriving the captives including sailors their human dignity. It was a prison for the captives, a marketplace for the capitalists, a factory for slavery and the concept of race. Amid the inhumanity, it was also a space that created a new group of people that would later flourish despite their different tribal origins.
Primary Sources
The author integrates several direct sources into the book to offer a glimpse into the institution of slavery. Through personal accounts in diaries, testimonials, and records of former slaves, slave owners, and ship crew, the book holds a unique perspective. The primary sources act as symbols of unfiltered truth and history that have been lost over time. The book does not rely on the author’s interpretation of the history of slavery but on personal experiences. As such, the result is a haunting history of a past that only the victims and oppressors could fathom.
Olaudah Equiano
The first-hand accounts of the former slave and renowned abolitionist offer an evocative description of the slave ships and slavery. The inclusion of his accounts aims to humanize the statistics and experiences of the innumerable and unidentified victims of slavery. His name and firsthand experience make the subject personal as the reader connects directly to a former slave. Equiano acts as a symbol of the humanity that the slaves ought to have been given during the Middle Passage and the subsequent years.
Middle Passage
Through primary sources, the book describes the workings and logistics of the Middle Passage. Therefore details the ship logs and documentations that facilitated the trading of slaves from the coast of Africa to the New Worlds. It accounts for the circulation of money that fostered global capitalism by financiers, debtors, sailors, and captains. The machine that is the Middle Passage was a trade that entailed many moving parts but with slavery at its core.
Terror
The book gives a detailed and vivid description of torture and cruelty on the ships from the perspective of both sailors and captives. The human dramas disclose the brutal ways the oppressors sought to restrain and force the African captives into submission. It also describes the deplorable conditions of the chambers the slaves were kept captive through the voyage. Through the accounts, it reveals that even the white low-ranking seafarers were not safe from torture and imprisonment. The book hardly spares the details of the terror on the floating dungeons that show the height of human cruelty.
