Chapter Ten: The Long Voyage of the Slave Ship

We have finally reached the end of the slave trade. The chapter begins by explaining the impact abolitionist had on the slave trade, and then it transitions into the dates of the last voyage of the trade. This chapter ties all of the previous chapters together and explains why it all came to an end. However, it also elaborates on the lasting effects the trade had on all four major focuses of the book: sailors, captains, merchants, and slaves. I thought that Rediker did an excellent job with carrying out those four titles throughout the entire novel. This chapter also gives out interesting dates and statistics dealing with the trade. Overall, a well executed ending to a book covering the details of the slave ship.

Chapter Nine: From Captives to Shipmates

This chapter is especially sad. It focuses on the slaves aboard the ships and really emphasizes on their lives aboard and how poorly they were treated. It is understood that Rediker views the enslaved as victims within the slave trade because of how he wants the reader to feel after reading this chapter specifically on the enslaved. I believe he wants you to feel for the slaves in a time where they had no control. The images in this chapter are vivid and horrid. Although, Rediker somewhat stands up for the captains and sailors in previous chapters, that does not justify the unruly punishment the slaves receive aboard the ships. Many first hand stories are added in this chapter from slaves who experienced the trade as another way to evoke some type of emotion from his readers. This chapter is necessary to understanding life as a slave, never the less extremely sad and depressing.

Chapter Eight: The Sailor's Vast Machine

Chapter eight is all about the sailors. Rediker gives the reader plenty of primary sources within this chapter to make his arguments credible. He talks about what the slave trade offered to a common sailor and how that ultimately drew them in. "What the slave trade offered above all else was ready money-an advance of two or three months' wages. This was the key to enticing sailors to join a trade they did not like." I believe this chapter is the basis of understanding the sailors involved in the trade. Rediker makes it clear that most of them did not join because they agreed with slavery or punishing the enslaved. Yet, they needed money and an opportunity, and they would do just about anything to receive it.

Chapter Seven: The Captain's Own Hell

This chapter was somewhat difficult to follow. However, it does give the reader multiple viewpoints. The chapter's main topic is all of the captain's worries while on the slave trade, and during this discussion Redicker adds first hand stories from a few captains who wrote about the slave trade later on in their lives. I was not a huge fan of this chapter simply because a lot of the same topics were already discussed, and Redicker seemed to lack organization in the midst of the chapter. He did, though, add in some good points about all of the different worries captains had while aboard, and why that made them so hostile. For example, management of the voyage and how to maintain the ship and its social order, resistance waged by both slaves and sailors, suicide and insurrection among the enslaved, and the health of all those on board. It was mentioned in the book that, "maintaining proper discipline was the crux of the whole enterprise." Which is seen as no surprise after reading about all of the captain's worries. Discipline was the only thing a captain had to maintain order on board, and scare the others into doing what they were asked. Unfortunately, most captains abused this power and turned discipline into harsh violence. "Many slave ship captains adopted a domineering style of shipboard leadership that can be summed up in a word: bully."

Chapter Six: John Newton and the Peaceful Kingdom

Redicker now switches his focus to a slave ship captain. The captain he chose to write about was named, John Newton. Newton has long been the best-known captain in the history of the African slave trade. "His fame derives from his subsequent career, in which he became an active, visible minister of the evangelical bent in the Church of England." However he has declared himself as a sinner for his previous career as a slave ship captain, in charge of the horror aboard the ship. The captain of a slaver was told to "wield the greatest power of all" for he had to manage common sailors and African captives. When Newton first started his career as a captain he was reluctant to inflict violence among his crew and the slaves. However, he eased into inflicting harsh violence upon them as he began to accept the power he was granted. As his cruelty intensified, those aboard began to resist and sometimes rebel. The book includes a story Newton once told about a slave on his ship poisoning a cask of water, with the intent to kill all who drank it. Years into his career, Newton began to realize the cruelty he was promoting was inhumane. Therefore, his life began to take a more religious turn. He began to keep a spiritual diary for three purposes: "to bring myself a deep sense of my past sins and follies, to enlarge my mind, and to compose my heart to a perfect peace and charity with all mankind." With a new mindset Newton started to lessen his violence because he was concerned with "saving the souls" of those aboard his ship. He still had to discipline the crew and the slaves, but now he did so aware of the consequences harsh violence could create. "It took Newton years before he wrote a critical word about the slave trade, and it would be more than three decades before he would declare himself against it."

This chapter gives you a deeper understanding of the mind behind an eighteenth century slave ship captain. Instead of viewing all captains as completely evil, John Newton exemplifies someone who saw opportunity in his career but came to see it as unkind. Therefore, offering the reader a different view of slave ship captains who inflicted harsh violence among their crew and the enslaved.

Chapter Five: James Field Stanfield and the Floating Dungeon

This was an interesting chapter because the focus shifted to a crew member aboard the slave ship. After I finished reading it, I had a new perspective on those who worked on the ships. Going into the chapter I viewed the slaves as being the only ones to be treated poorly during the Middle Passage. However, this chapter gives you a whole new perspective. The focus of the chapter is a sailor named James Field Stanfield and he was the first to write about the slave ship from the perspective of the common sailor. Redicker tells his audience that "Stanfield's descriptions of the trade and the ship were among the very best ever written by a working sailor." The chapter begins at the beginning of Stanfield's life. We learn that Stanfield was well educated and that science had "opened his views of the world." He described himself as "a man of feeling" and wanted to search for the joys and beauties of nature and philosophy, which is what drew him to sailing. He also proclaimed that sailors did not like the slave trade, however they needed money in their pockets. Stanfield did not like most merchants, as they were the ones who lured sailors aboard to work in the Middle Passage. Despite the horrors of the slave trade, Stanfield could not deny the thrill ships and the open sea gave him, "the ship was a thing of beauty, with new sails and fresh paint, with colors flying, and banners streaming in the sea breeze." This is where I began to gain a new perspective…Redicker adds that sailors were extremely undernourished just like the enslaved, if not more. This was because the captain an economic incentive to feed the slaves and keep them alive during the Middle Passage. Stanfield thought that slaves were in certain respects better off than the crew. The captains violence was completely overpowering, and he inflicted that on both the slaves and the sailors. Before reading this chapter I had no idea how horrible the sailors lives were on the ships, which I believe is due to the abundance of publicized works from the enslaved drawing our attention more towards the slaves and not the crew. James Field Stanfield's account of the slave trade gave a new perspective of the ships to many of his readers. Redicker says it is, "more detailed, more gruesome, and more dramatic than anything that had yet appeared in 1788 (the year it was published).

Chapter Four: Olaudah Equiano: Astonishment and Terror

Chapter four is the first chance Rediker gives his readers to follow one person, stretched out over one chapter, and their journey on the Middle Passage. This specific chapter is based on Olaudah Equiano, who was seized from his home in Igbo (present day Nigeria) at age eleven. Equiano and his sister were forced to work at the home of their captors. His captors later pulled him and his sister apart and they were both sold many times. Six or seven months after being captured he had arrived at the sea coast and likely the slave trading port of Bonny. He was placed aboard one ship and described an instant distinction of terror. "Whites looked and acted as I thought in so savage a manner; for I have never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty." At this point the reader feels for all of the enslaved aboard as Rediker inserts a passage from Equiano's narrative which goes into conditions of the ship. "Everyone was confined together belowdecks, the apartments were so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself. The enslaved were spooned together in close quarters, each with about as much room as a corpse in a coffin. The stench became absolutely pestilential as the sweat, the vomit, the blood, and the necessary tubs full of excitement almost suffocated us" I thought this chapter was very intriguing because it focused on one person's experience. What made Olaudah Equiano different from other the enslaved aboard slave ships, was what he did with himself after he landed in Virginia. The book mentions Equiano, "learned all he could from the sailors about how the ship worked." This later became his own path to liberation. He went on to work as a sailor, and buy his freedom at age twenty four. Equiano was also the first person to write about the slave ship from the perspective of the enslaved. Therefore, I believe the Rediker chose his focus of this chapter wisely. The reader is really able to get a feel for life as a slave before, during, and after the Middle Passage.