63 pages • 2 hours read
Marcus RedikerThe Slave Ship: A Human History
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “African Paths to the Middle Passage”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, sexual violence, child sexual abuse, death, and suicide.
The African path to enslavement was a traumatic process that began inland, often in the wake of conflict, judicial punishments, or organized raids, and ended on the coast, where captives were sold to European enslavers and transported across the Atlantic. These experiences varied widely depending on the regions and societies involved but shared common elements of violence, coercion, and profound displacement. In 1794, a territorial dispute between the Gola and Ibau kingdoms over hunting rights escalated into violence. After a skirmish left a Gola man dead, the Gola retaliated with an invasion, capturing and selling Ibau prisoners as enslaved people. The conflict spiraled, with hundreds taken captive. Such localized disputes often led to widespread violence and enslavement. In this case, captives were marched in coffles—bound by poles and neck restraints—to the coast, where they were sold to European traders. This marked the transition from African to European control, symbolized by the “change from cordage to iron fetters” (74).
The process of enslavement began deep inland. For many, the journey to the coast, often hundreds of miles, was marked by deprivation, brutal discipline, and attempts to escape. Captives were organized into coffles, with technologies like neck collars and logs used to restrain and control them. Along the way, some captives were sold multiple times, with each transaction bringing them closer to the coast and the slave ships. Resistance, whether through escape, rebellion, or suicide, was a constant feature of this grim journey.
Slavery was an “ancient and widely accepted institution” in African societies before the transatlantic trade (77), often as a result of war or judicial punishment. However, the arrival of European traders intensified the demand for captives, reshaping the political and economic landscapes of West and West-Central Africa. Societies that participated in the slave trade gained access to European goods, particularly firearms, which they used to dominate weaker neighbors and expand their power. For example, militarized states like Asante, Dahomey, and Oyo became key suppliers of enslaved people, using their armies to capture prisoners and fuel the trade. Other regions, such as Senegambia, saw the integration of the Atlantic trade with older trans-Saharan networks. Coastal traders—known as “big men” (82)—like Henry Tucker in Sierra Leone and Antera Duke in the Bight of Biafra became powerful intermediaries, controlling access to European goods and accumulating wealth. The Atlantic trade fostered new divisions of labor and power, with middlemen organizing the capture, transport, and sale of captives. This system expanded slavery’s scale and brutality, as even small-scale societies became entangled in the trade. By the 18th century, slavery in African societies had shifted from a marginal institution to a central economic driver, often at the expense of traditional social structures.
The transatlantic trade drew captives from distinct African regions, each with unique characteristics:
Senegambia: A long history of trade and Islamic influence defined this region. Jihads and political upheaval spurred the capture and sale of non-Muslims, often through large-scale wars. The area exported about 400,000 captives during the 18th century.
Sierra Leone and the Windward Coast: Characterized by small, decentralized societies, this region was a major source of rice and provisions for slave ships. Figures like Henry Tucker dominated local trade, supplying over 460,000 captives.
Gold Coast: The rise of centralized states like Asante fueled massive enslavement. The Asante’s militarized expansion and reliance on firearms enabled them to supply over a million captives to the Atlantic trade.
Bight of Benin: Dominated by the Fon and Yoruba peoples, this region saw the emergence of powerful states like Dahomey, which organized systematic raids in which captured individuals were sold into the slave trade. Nearly 1.4 million captives were exported in the 18th century.
Bight of Biafra: Lacking centralized states, the Bight of Biafra relied on city-states like Old Calabar and Bonny, where leaders like Antera Duke controlled trade. This region, known for its Igbo population, exported over a million captives, primarily to British and American ships.
West-Central Africa: Encompassing Angola and Kongo, this region became the most significant supplier of enslaved people by the late 18th century. Captives were taken in wars and raids, with more than 2.7 million shipped during the century. This constituted “38 percent of the century’s total” (97).
Enslavement often began with war or organized raids, such as the “grand pillage” (102), where villages were burned and inhabitants captured. Children deemed too small for enslavement were killed. Judicial processes also played a role, with rulers sentencing people to enslavement for crimes or debts, often under dubious circumstances. Others were sold at inland markets or kidnapped through deception, as in the case of Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, who was lured by a trader’s tales of the sea. Resistance was a persistent feature of enslavement, with captives fighting back during raids, escaping during marches, or rebelling once aboard slave ships. However, the transition from African to European control, marked by the “door of no return” on the coast (106), was a point of ultimate despair. Captives were loaded onto slave ships and shackled and confined, leaving behind their families, communities, and identities. Within their desolation, however, lay “new, broader possibilities of identification, association, and action” (107).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Olaudah Equiano: Astonishment and Terror”
Olaudah Equiano, later known as Gustavus Vassa, was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement and a leading chronicler of the transatlantic slave trade from the perspective of the enslaved people. As described in his autobiography, published in 1789, he was born in Igbo land (modern Nigeria) around 1745. Equiano’s early life was abruptly disrupted when he and his sister were kidnapped by slave traders. When Equiano first encountered a slave ship at the age of 11, he was filled with “astonishment and terror” (108). His initial encounter with the ship’s crew left him believing that they were evil spirits. Once aboard, he was appalled by the sight of chained captives and feared that he would be eaten. The stench and cramped conditions below deck quickly made him ill, and his refusal to eat resulted in a flogging.
Equiano was born into a prosperous Igbo family in Essaka, a village in central Nigeria. His father was a respected elder and council member. The family owned enslaved people in a system that Equiano claimed was far less brutal than the slavery he would later experience. Equiano fondly recalled the cooperative nature of his village, where land was communally owned and a “rough equality prevailed” (112). However, the 18th century brought upheaval to the region, facilitating the rise of a network of warlord traders who funneled captives to coastal ports for sale. Equiano’s village was not immune to these forces, and slave raids became a growing threat.
Equiano and his sister were seized by raiders when left unattended at home. The two were quickly bound and taken away, marking the beginning of a harrowing journey to the coast. Although initially kept together, they were soon separated, a loss that profoundly affected Equiano. Over the next six months, he was sold multiple times, eventually ending up with a wealthy merchant in Tinmah, where he experienced a brief respite and was treated well. As Equiano moved closer to the coast, he encountered unfamiliar customs and languages. His arrival at the Bonny River, with its bustling canoes, signaled the end of his inland journey and the beginning of the Middle Passage.
The slave ship, anchored off the coast, was unlike anything Equiano had seen. He marveled with “horrified awe” at its size and construction but soon became appalled by its purpose (116). Once aboard, he encountered the chained captives, the stench of human waste, and the ever-present threat of violence. Equiano feared the crew, whom he believed were cannibals, and described the ship as a place of constant terror and degradation. Below deck, the enslaved were packed tightly together, with barely enough room to turn. Disease, suffocation, and despair claimed many lives, while those who survived endured beatings and other punishments for resisting. Equiano noted the widespread desire for death among his fellow captives, some of whom chose suicide by jumping overboard. He himself envied the dead, believing them to be free.
Despite the dehumanizing conditions, acts of resistance emerged. Equiano observed the enslaved coordinating rebellions and stealing food, acts that exemplified their determination to survive. His curiosity about the ship’s mechanics also marked the beginning of his path to eventual freedom. Equiano learned about the ship’s workings, a knowledge that would later enable him to become a sailor and buy his freedom through his personal “strategy of resistance” (121).
Upon reaching Barbados, the “epicenter of the historic sugar revolution” (122), Equiano and the other captives were inspected, sorted, and sold in a chaotic “scramble” where families and friends were separated, often permanently. The bonds formed during the voyage were torn apart. Equiano, deemed unsellable in Barbados due to his frail condition, was sent to Virginia, where he was purchased as a gift for someone in England—sending him back across the Atlantic. On the voyage to England aboard the Industrious Bee, Equiano began forming new connections. He befriended Richard Baker, the captain’s son, who helped him navigate life aboard the ship. This relationship, along with his growing knowledge of English, marked the start of Equiano’s adaptation to a new world, but the lingering trauma of the Middle Passage remained a defining feature of his early years in enslavement.
Equiano’s narrative highlights the broader experiences of millions who endured the transatlantic slave trade. His story reveals how the enslaved resisted, adapted, and forged new identities amid unimaginable hardship. His original name was lost to violence, but he gained a new one through small acts of resistance. The acts of resistance that he witnessed and participated in were the “formation of a new language” aboard the slave ships (130). By reclaiming his name and sharing his story, Equiano became a voice for the voiceless, exposing the brutality of slavery and advocating for its abolition. He told the story of the way in which “dispossessed Africans formed themselves into informal mutual-aid societies, in some cases even ‘nations’” (131), while on the slave ships, finding strength in their multitude.
Chapter 5 Summary: “James Field Stanfield and the Floating Dungeon”
James Field Stanfield, an Irish-born sailor, actor, and writer, was uniquely positioned to expose the cruelty of the slave trade. Having sailed on a slave-trading voyage from Liverpool to Benin and Jamaica (1774-1776) and lived for eight months at a slave-trading factory on the Slave Coast, he combined firsthand experience with literary skill and theatrical sensibility. His works, including Observations on a Guinea Voyage (1788) and The Guinea Voyage: A Poem in Three Books (1789), offer some of the earliest and most detailed first-person accounts of the trade’s brutality. Stanfield’s writings are a dramatic indictment of the slave trade, depicting the slave ship as both a literal and metaphorical floating dungeon. His perspective as a common sailor makes his exposé particularly striking, as he highlights the exploitation of “the common sailor” alongside the atrocities inflicted on enslaved Africans (134). He believed that only common sailors could truthfully reveal the trade’s horrors, as sailors lacked vested interests. He sought to be the voice for both the “meager survivors” among sailors and the voiceless enslaved (134), detailing their shared experiences of suffering and cruelty.
Stanfield’s career as a sailor began after he abandoned his studies for priesthood. Though he was a common sailor, he was better educated and wealthier than his peers. Drawn to the freedom and adventure of the sea, he sailed extensively across Europe, the Americas, and the West Indies before his fateful Guinea voyage aboard a slave ship named the Eagle. His observations emphasized the systemic exploitation inherent in the slave trade, beginning with the recruitment of sailors. Merchants and captains used deceptive tactics to lure sailors into contracts, often trapping them in debt through alcohol and coercion. Many sailors found themselves pressed into service on slave ships under false pretenses. Often facing prison if they did not accept the job on the ship, they were “forced to exchange a landed dungeon for a floating one” (139).
The Eagle, an old and leaky ship, departed Liverpool in 1774 and served as a floating factory off the Benin coast. Stanfield escaped the ship’s initial ravages by residing inland at a slave-trading fortress, but he rejoined the 32-man crew for the Middle Passage aboard the True Blue, a sister ship that was in better shape to finish the journey. On this voyage, over half the crew perished. Stanfield’s first-person perspective reveals the inhumane conditions that the sailors endured, including inadequate provisions, physical abuse, and exposure to disease. Captains, unrestrained by oversight, wielded near-absolute power, using violence to maintain discipline and control. Initially presented as a symbol of maritime beauty, the ship transformed into a site of unimaginable horror once it left sight of land. Abuses intensified upon arrival in African waters, where the captain, in Stanfield’s words, became possessed by the “Demon Cruelty” (144).
The enslaved faced even greater atrocities than the sailors. Stanfield vividly describes their arrival aboard the ship, overwhelmed by the massive, unfamiliar vessel. Once below deck, they were packed tightly, their bodies rubbing against the rough planks, causing festering sores. The confined space, lack of ventilation, and unsanitary conditions led to sickness and death. The sounds of anguish—such as groans, cries, and songs of despair—created a haunting soundscape. Suicide attempts were frequent. Women, in particular, faced unique horrors, including sexual violence. Stanfield writes the harrowing tale of a young girl named Quam’no who was kidnapped on her wedding day.
The Middle Passage, the transatlantic leg of the slave trade, epitomized the inhumanity of the enterprise. Stanfield describes the enslaved as “pack’d in close misery” below deck (150), their bodies sweating, bleeding, and writhing in pain. Many were force-fed using a speculum oris, a metal device that pried their mouths open to force feed those who tried to go on hunger strike. Resistance was met with floggings, further dehumanizing the enslaved. Stanfield also alludes to but does not explicitly describe “the rape of a small girl by the captain” (152), believing that his words cannot fittingly describe the pain of the eight- or nine-year-old girl.
Even sailors were not spared. Overworked and underfed, they succumbed to disease and exhaustion. Stanfield recounts the horrific deaths of his shipmates, including one whose body was mutilated by hogs and another whose corpse floated beside the ship as a grim reminder of the crew’s fate. As the crew’s numbers dwindled, the enslaved were unshackled and forced to help operate the ship, effectively becoming both prisoners and laborers.
The ship’s arrival in Jamaica marked another phase of trauma. The enslaved were prepared for sale, shaved, oiled, and presented like livestock. The scramble, a chaotic sale aboard the ship, was a moment of terror as buyers rushed to claim their “prey,” throwing chains around their chosen captives. Families and communities formed during the voyage were torn apart, resulting in anguished cries that echoed across the harbor.
Stanfield’s writings are “more detailed, more gruesome, and, in a word, more dramatic” than previous writings about the slave trade (154), combining evocative imagery with moral urgency. He describes the interconnected suffering of sailors and enslaved Africans, both victims of an oppressive system driven by greed. Yet he distinguishes the sailors as “unwilling instruments” of the trade (155), contrasting them with the merchants and captains whom he portrays as calculating and sadistic. Stanfield’s work contributed to the burgeoning abolitionist movement, emphasizing the visceral reality of the slave ship over abstract philosophical arguments. By offering a “real view” of the horrors aboard (156), he aimed to inspire empathy and action.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
In Chapter 3, Rediker explores African involvement in the slave trade from the perspective of the captors, rather than the captives. Slavery, Rediker notes, was present in much of Africa before the arrival of Europeans. As such, the descriptions of African involvement in the slave trade serve three functions: first, to create a juxtaposition between previous forms of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade; second, to illustrate the depth and breadth of the slave trade; and third, to demonstrate that race was a socially constructed excuse for European and American involvement in the slave trade. With regard to the first point, Rediker contrasts the localized, militaristic, and largely informal systems of slavery that existed in many African cultures before the arrival of Europeans with the globalized, industrialized, mechanized transatlantic slave trade. In terms of sheer scale and suffering, the two are not comparable. Furthermore, Rediker explores the involvement of Africans in the slave trade to demonstrate that European slavery supercharged extant systems into much worse versions of themselves. By creating financial and military incentives to propagate the slave trade, Europeans encouraged African people to transform existing systems of slavery into what became the transatlantic slave trade. Finally, the role of African “big men” as equal participants in business dealings surrounding the slave trade demonstrates the extent to which race is a flexible, socially constructed reality (82). Skin color and ethnicity became justifications for capitalist exploitation, Rediker suggests; while many people were racist, race was not an equally applied category to every person. African people could be enslaved, and they could be slave traders; they could be among the captives onboard the slave ships, as well as among the captors. Race as an abstract idea was flexible enough to cross this boundary, rather than being a definitive, objective idea. Rather, it emerged as a flimsy justification for violence and suffering.
Rediker’s focus on the slave ship is linked to his framing of The Slave Ship as a Factory that produces enslaved people as commodities. Central to this process is dehumanization. The captains and common sailors aboard the ship engage in so much violence against the captives as a deliberate process of dehumanization, stripping away any form of human identity from the captives so that they will be ready for sale in the Americas. The process of dehumanization can be read through the removal and assignment of names. Rediker uses the example of Olaudah Equiano to demonstrate that “just as the loss of a name was part of the culture stripping of dispossession, the assignment of a new name could be an act of aggression and domination” (129). Humanity was taken away from the enslaved by replacing their names with numbers. Humanity was returned to people like Equiano, who was renamed at numerous times as people attempted to impose a new identity upon him. In a telling irony, the ships that were so central to the trade were each given names. The names of these inanimate objects were remembered, even becoming famous, while the humans they carried had their names deliberately forgotten.
The importance of names and identity is reflected in the structure of the book. After introducing his thesis of a history of slavery from below, Rediker dedicates chapters to the stories of individuals. Olaudah Equiano is the first example, followed by James Field Stanfield and John Newton. This section of the book foregrounds these identities, seeking to understand the broader practice of slavery through the stories of individuals. Importantly, the decision to focus a chapter on a particular individual is not an endorsement of their actions. Rediker does not discriminate or condemn through his choice of stories; every perspective is useful in constructing a holistic understanding of slavery. In particular, the stories of individuals create important moments of contrast. Slavery was experienced differently by different people, from the enslaved, to the sailors, to the captains. Furthermore, as in the case of John Newton in the following chapter, these identities could shift and change. Crew members could become captains, and the enslaved could become crew members. As such, Rediker hopes to not only to provide a more complete understanding of the slave trade but also explore how roles and identities could change and evolve within this context.
