Summary Of Saltwater Slavery By Stephanie Smallwood

Focusing on the lives of those who traversed the waters of the Atlantic aboard slave ships bound for the Caribbean and America has proven to be a task by historians in recent years as more and more is added to the already growing historiography of the Atlantic slave trade, but most importantly, the lives of the Africans who were the focus of this European endeavor. Stephanie Smallwood’s book Saltwater Slavery is a testament to this ongoing research. In her book, Smallwood focuses on a narrow approach to contextualizing the slave trade through the experiences of those sold into slavery along the Gold Coast of Africa, the Royal African Company’s exploitation within the region, and its efforts at sea. Smallwood’s overall goal of the book is to trace the …show more content…
In the early chapters of the book, Smallwood sets the stage for an Africa mingling with the early attempts by Europe to colonize and establish trade with the arrival of the Portuguese, and the establishment of the idea of commodifying people, which Smallwood establishes a central premise of the book. Smallwood argues that the commodification of the people of Africa, particularly those on the Gold Coast had severe negative consequences, with Smallwood stating, “Commodification removed captives from that landscape of abundance and put them into a situation of unmitigated poverty” (43). Smallwood uses this idea of commodification to outline her next few chapters in which she illustrates how the overall process of amassing “cargo” for the voyages relied more on the ship's capacity, rather than the well-being of those being taken aboard (68). Most importantly, Smallwood illustrates how this process of commodifying people created the biggest factor throughout the slave trade, the mental destruction and dismantling of hope for those whose new lives will be across the