The Slave Ship: A Human History

The slave ship Brooks became an enduring symbol of the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and the abolitionist movement’s powerful propaganda. By the late 1780s, transatlantic slave ships had transported millions of Africans to American plantations, cementing a “powerful new Atlantic capitalist economy” reliant on slavery (308). However, abolitionists in Britain and the US sought to bring the realities of the trade into public consciousness, emphasizing the moral indefensibility of the slave ships. The Brooks, in particular, gained notoriety as a site of cruelty and suffering, and it became a key tool for galvanizing public opposition to the trade.

Abolitionists utilized various media to expose the slave trade, but visual imagery proved the most compelling. The first drawing of the Brooks, published in 1788 by William Elford and the Plymouth chapter of The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, depicted Africans “tightly packed and arranged in orderly fashion” (311). The Brooks’s dimensions and layout, documented by Captain Parrey of the Royal Navy, made it a prime example for abolitionist propaganda. Parrey’s inspection revealed that the ship allocated only a few square feet per person, illustrating the inhumane conditions of the Middle Passage. The Plymouth broadside depicted the Brooks as it would appear under the newly passed Dolben Act of 1788, which limited the number of enslaved people transported. Previous voyages of the Brooks were not beholden to these regulations and transported even higher numbers of enslaved people. Even with these restrictions, the image showed hundreds of Africans tightly packed into the ship’s hold, their suffering undeniable.

The Brooks diagram was widely distributed, reshaped, and adapted across Britain and the United States. In Philadelphia, for instance, Mathew Carey reproduced the image in his magazine and as a standalone broadside, shrinking its size but intensifying its emotional impact. American versions linked the image more explicitly to slavery as a whole, emphasizing the inhumanity of the system rather than merely critiquing the trade. In London, the image was further “improved” with multiple sectional views and expanded explanatory text (317). These additions reflected a more empirical approach, underscoring the abolitionists’ desire to present irrefutable facts. The abolitionist Thomas Clarkson played a critical role in shaping these visual and textual campaigns, combining his investigative work among sailors and ship records with his passion for justice.

Clarkson’s extensive research among common sailors revealed critical insights into the workings of slave ships like the Brooks. Clarkson sought to create “a history from below” (320), portraying the experiences from the perspective of the sailors rather than the merchants or captains. Often marginalized and subjected to brutal treatment themselves, sailors provided firsthand accounts of the horrors they witnessed. Clarkson’s interviews with injured and disillusioned sailors exposed the “barbarous system” of the trade (324), making their testimonies pivotal in shaping the abolitionist narrative. These accounts detailed the appalling conditions below deck, the cruelty of captains, and the extreme suffering of the enslaved. Sailors’ evidence, paired with the graphic imagery of the Brooks, allowed abolitionists to craft a compelling argument against the trade. Their testimonies highlighted the inhumane conditions, calculated violence, and death built into the system.

The Brooks featured prominently in the debates leading to legislative action against the slave trade. It became central to parliamentary discussions in Britain, with its diagram frequently referenced as a visual argument against the trade. Sir William Dolben, moved by his visit to a slave ship, championed legislation to regulate the number of enslaved people per tonnage, marking a step toward abolition. In France, the Brooks also made an impression. Clarkson distributed the image during his six-month campaign in Paris, influencing key figures like Count Mirabeau, who even commissioned a model of the ship to use in debates. Across the Atlantic, the Brooks became a symbol of abolitionist resistance, appearing in public spaces and publications.

Supporters of the slave trade tried to counter abolitionist arguments, portraying slave ships as humane and orderly. Merchants like Robert Norris claimed that enslaved Africans experienced good treatment and even joy aboard the ships, assertions ridiculed by abolitionists as absurd. Despite these defenses, the Brooks and its accompanying evidence painted an undeniable picture of systemic cruelty. The Brooks exemplified both the physical and conceptual violence of the slave trade. Its image exposed how human beings were reduced to commodities, packed into spaces designed for maximum profit. This stark representation helped dismantle the ideological justifications for “the new, modern economic system in all its horrifying nakedness, capitalism without a loincloth” (339). The abolitionist movement achieved major victories in Britain and the US by the early 19th century, culminating in the formal abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807. Yet the Brooks continued its voyages, carrying enslaved people to the Americas until its final voyage in 1804. Even after the ship’s physical end, its image endured, “epitomizing the horrors of the trade and helping to advance a worldwide struggle against slavery” (342).

The harrowing account of the Polly, captained by James D’Wolf, epitomizes the systemic violence of the transatlantic slave trade. In 1791, sailor John Cranston testified before a Rhode Island grand jury about D’Wolf’s killing of an enslaved woman, thrown overboard to prevent the spread of smallpox. Despite crew objections, D’Wolf tied the woman to a chair, masked her mouth to stifle her cries, and orchestrated her death, valuing the safety of his chair over her life. This woman’s murder was deemed to be in the economic interest of the voyage, as the captain had a “material incentive” to kill her to prevent her illness from spreading to the other enslaved people in the ship (345). This act, emblematic of the dehumanization inherent in the slave trade, sparked public outrage, with five newspapers covering the incident and a grand jury indicting D’Wolf for murder.

However, D’Wolf evaded accountability, fleeing on another slaving voyage and leveraging his powerful family’s influence to avoid prosecution. Depositions from sailors justified the killing as necessary to control the Coromantee captives, known for rebellion. D’Wolf’s calculated decision to maximize profits by skimping on crew and medical care and to transport captives with a history of resistance served to highlight the trade’s mercenary priorities. His actions were underpinned by an insurance policy that incentivized killing captives to protect the majority.

The Polly’s voyage underscores two forces challenging the slave trade: African resistance and abolitionist movements. Coromantee captives, associated with revolts like Tacky’s Rebellion in Jamaica (1760-1761), inspired fear among enslavers, while abolitionist agitation after incidents like the Zong massacre—a 1781 event in which the crew of the slave ship Zong deliberately killed more than 140 enslaved people in order to claim insurance money from their deaths—made such killings a focal point of moral outrage. Cranston’s testimony in 1791, amid peak abolitionist activism, reflects a growing alignment between sailors, rebellious Africans, and antislavery advocates, an emerging coalition that would ultimately dismantle the trade. Yet, in 1795, D’Wolf escaped justice entirely, aided by manipulated testimonies, judicial rulings in his favor, and his family’s political clout. The systemic power structures that enabled his exoneration underscore the entrenched dominance of the slave trade’s beneficiaries.

By the time Britain and the US abolished the slave trade in 1807-1808, the Atlantic economy had forcibly transported over 9 million Africans, with British and American ships accounting for 3 million. The human cost was staggering: 5 million deaths in Africa, during voyages, and shortly after arrival in the Americas. Despite these atrocities, the trade generated immense wealth for its proponents. In 1807 alone, Britain imported 298 million pounds of sugar, 3.77 million gallons of rum, and other goods produced by enslaved people. The enslaved population in the Atlantic region reached 3.3 million, and “the slave-based production of the New World had cost the slaves 2,500,000,000 hours of toil” and sold for “a gross sum that could not have been much less than £35,000,000, or 3.3 billion 2007 dollars” (348).

The slave ship, central to this economic system, was a “diabolical machine” that inflicted terror on both enslaved people and sailors. Captives endured forced labor, brutal punishment, and dehumanization, while sailors faced disease, violence, and exploitative conditions. Yet the shared suffering on these vessels sometimes fostered surprising moments of compassion, as seen when enslaved Africans cared for sick and dying sailors in Caribbean ports. The slave ship exemplified the intersection of capitalism and violence, serving as both a tool of wealth generation and an instrument of terror. Merchant capitalists, largely removed from the physical and psychological horrors of the trade, orchestrated their operations from afar. They turned human lives into commodities, driving a transatlantic system of labor exploitation that linked continents and economies.

The Polly, like other slavers, not only transported captives but also prepared them for plantation labor through physical subjugation and cultural erasure. Despite abolition, the legacy of the slave trade lingers. The wealth accrued by figures like D’Wolf, who became a US senator, contrasts starkly with the ongoing struggles of the descendants of the enslaved. Efforts to address this legacy through reparations and justice remain contentious but necessary, Rediker believes. As the legacy of slavery continues to shape societies, the need for justice and accountability becomes ever more urgent. Addressing this history demands a reckoning with the violence and exploitation at the heart of Atlantic capitalism. Only through such efforts can the endless passage of the slave ship finally come to a close, transforming its legacy into one of healing and solidarity. Meanwhile, the good deeds described by Rediker speak to “the possibility of a different future” (355).