Saltwater Slavery Reaction Academic Essay

In Saltwater Slavery, Stephanie Smallwood attempts to reconstruct the Atlantic slave trade from the perspective of Africans. For example, she argues that enslaved people leaving Africa had little idea where they were being taken or what was to be required of them when they arrived. Thus, to talk about the Atlantic slave ship experience as the “middle passage” does not correspond to the lived experiences of slaves themselves. Still, a major challenge Smallwood faced in writing this book was that she was limited by sources. Very few accounts of the slaves themselves exist today. Instead, she had to rely on the accounts of Europeans in order to reconstruct the lived experiences of African slaves.

Considering this, please respond to the following in 500 words:

What are some examples of how Smallwood demonstrates the African perspective of the Atlantic slave trade?
Considering the sources available (mostly European) do you think she did a convincing job demonstrating the African perspective?
Did you like this book? Do you think it is a valuable way to learn about the black experience?

Answer

The book, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora by Stephanie Smallwood provides the readers with information about the processes of enslavement from its African origins through the Middle Passage and into the American slave market. The book, which took place between the periods of 1675 and 1725, offers a relevant exploration of the processes of commodification and forced migration.

Furthermore, the author also attempts to reconstruct the experiences that the captives had suffered throughout the journey of slavery. Typically, when writing a book about the black experience based on European accounts and sources, it would bring about some doubts regarding the validity of the accord that the African slaves have experienced; however, in my opinion, I think Smallwood did a convincing job at demonstrating the African perspective of the Atlantic slave trade despite the limited sources she had. For instance, Smallwood mentioned how the Africans were truly dehumanized in some way because they felt as if they were being transformed from human beings to merely objects of trade and labor exchange. This example was shown in the second chapter of the book, in which Smallwood described that the captives stood in front of an audience of potential buyers who did not see them as human beings, as people, but rather, these buyers view them as properties.

In addition, the author described in great detail about how these Africans were crammed into very small areas of the boat, shackled down to force immobilization, and depicts about the horrible truth of these slave ships. Another example of how the author demonstrated the African perspective was mentioning how these slaves were captured and thrown onto the ships without being told where they were going, what they will experience when they reach their destination, nor if they are able to survive the long journey. Smallwood also explained how the journey on the ship was not a living situation for these Africans, and that the closer they reach the destination, the smaller the amount of captives are available on the ships because they could not survive. Overall, I was convinced with Smallwood’s demonstration of the African perspective because she provided the readers with a lot of descriptive details of the experiences that these slaves went through. She also included numerical data and personal narratives from former slaves to backup her information.

I really enjoyed reading Saltwater Slavery and thought it was a very interesting book full of insights regarding the Africans’ perspectives on their slavery processes. Slavery has been and still is a major historical topic discussed in classrooms all throughout our nation today, so being able to grasp an understanding of these perspectives throughout the book was indeed nice. In addition, I thought Smallwood did a good job of illustrating a picture of Saltwater Slavery from historical documents written by these Africans’ captors. I believe the book is a valuable way to learn about the black experience as it provides many insights and documentaries about the political economy of slave ship, the Middle Passage, and the process of selling slaves in the New World.