Review of Marcus Rediker's "The Slave Ship." (2007)
Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Penguin Press, 2007), pgs. 434.
See here for copy. See here for earlier review I wrote on the Substack “Best of Times…Worst of Times.”
Marcus Rediker (1951-present), a historian of the Atlantic World (his early work explores pirates and the slave trade) and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, tackles a horrific story of the Middle Passage between the seventeenth and early nineteenth century in his book The Slave Ship (2007). Rediker is a master writer, his narrative voice and dynamic writing capturing the horror and brutality the Atlantic world slave trade. Focused on the space of the slave trading ship and the world upon the decks of these “factories” (to borrow Rediker’s term) he draws from slave ship logs, memoirs, and letters to articulate a narrative that is brutal, violent, and horrific.
This is my second time reading the book and readers may see that I have more extensive criticisms of Rediker’s work this go around. My first reading certainly was influenced by the horror I felt at what I was reading. One cannot read this book without feeling the pains of generations as a world of violence and inhumanity is presented to the reader. Rediker does justice in providing a voice for his wide cast of characters, ranging from the enslaved to the merchants. His skill at driving home an argument with a poignant antidote illustrates why this book continues to be used in graduate seminars and by those outside the academy. He draws on numerous primary sources (largely slave trader narratives) and is able to extract the voices of the enslaved from largely non-African sources. Rediker deserves commendation for his work and for placing the slave ship as a space to be interrogated. As he notes, far too often narratives of slavery pay scant attention to the actual ship experience.
Rediker argues that the slave ship was an essential cog in the growth of modern capitalism, a system inherently founded on violence. His thesis suggests furthermore that the slave ship was the space in which a unique pan-African identity took shape. This identity was created as Black slaves were pitted against white sailors and captains. The bonds of suffering broke down previous cultural and ethnic identities that had divided the people of West Africa. People of African descent became united in a common resistance against the capitalistic and violent oppression imposed on them by white Europeans.
While successful in capturing a wide range of views and placing them in conversation with each other, there are several weaknesses that inhibit the book. They are his framing, his lack of engagement with the history of slavery and of West Africa, and his positioning of the sailors as innocent proletariats.
Rediker, a “far-leftist” according to his own description frames his narrative in a classical Marxian interpretation of class warfare between the greedy bourgeoisie capitalists and the oppressed enslaved proletariat (he would likely include the common sailor in this category as well). To be candid, I have never been particularly fond of meta-narratives such as those offered by Marxist/neo-Marxist historians. I do not find it to be the most effective method of explaining the past, in part because these narratives gloss over the countless nuances of ideology and belief and often deprive mankind of the agency and individuality that crosses all hierarchies. Beyond my general critique of Marxian history, Rediker’s narrative of a class war on the slave trade is not without its challenges. One challenge is how slave trading pulled into the maws of the slave holds people from all different classes and backgrounds. Elites who had waged war could one day be selling slaves, the next enslaved by their enemy. Furthermore, the culture on the colonial plantation illustrates that the slave ship did not simply erase class and cultural boundaries. In many locales, elites rose in the slave system and at times freed themselves to become masters as well. I also found Rediker’s broad assertion that the experience of the slave ship led to the creation of pan-Africanism interesting, but not without challenges. While the violence of the system united for a time, this in no way precluded the loss of traditional rivalries and animosities (as Rediker notes himself of conflicts within the holds of ships). Because of this meta-framing any exploration of the divergences between Africans is not explored deeply. Nuances of those who resisted and those who chose not to resist are not explored. Ultimately, the focus on a divide between oppressor and oppressed limits the ability to see collaboration in the system.
Another area I found problematic is the meta-framing of the Anglo-Atlantic world as the center of slave trading. While Great Britain was certainly a major player in the slave trade, the Anglo-Atlantic was only a portion of a broader slave trading system that flowed from West Africa to destinations across the Atlantic World and throughout the Middle East. Rediker acknowledges that Europeans did not invent the trade, but rather entered into an already deeply established world of slavery. This does not take away from the brutality or effectivity of European slave trading, nor the immense wealth accrued by the trade in European cities and towns. But, it does complicate the narrative. How can we grapple with the eagerness of African elites to supply the trade or of the readiness of groups to create empires based on the slave trade? Beyond chapter three, which briefly acknowledges the system of slavery in Africa and African participation in the trade, Africa is often portrayed as almost an Edenic (a word Rediker states people framed it as but does not refute) and a place of goodness. Furthermore, Rediker fails to engage with the long Mediterranean slave trade both from Eastern Europe and Africa that influenced European impressions of slavery. Too often, the narrative frames the Atlantic slave trade as a novel capitalist creation, rather than the process of centuries of choices and ideologies.
Finally, Rediker’s turning the common sailor into a victim of the system, rather than a perpetrator of violence is troubling. He does acknowledge the sailor’s role in violence, yet frequently, the average seaman, the “ideal proletariat,” is not given the same criticism as the merchants and captains, despite equally participating in a brutal trade, many willingly signing on to engage in a brutal practice. Violence is excused as the result of the culture created by elites. This fails to give agency to those who participated in the trade, something I am deeply opposed to.
Ultimately, this is a very important book to engage with. Rediker convincingly shows that the slave ship was not a neutral site of transportation but an extension of the slave system and foundational in integrating violence as a means of control. At times his arguments are overextended or framed in ways that are less effective, however, this is a well written and tragic book that needs to be examined by all.
Robert Swanson