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American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865
The first telling of the unknown story of America’s two-hundred-year history as a slave-trading nation
“A work of impressive breadth, deep research, and evenhanded analysis.”—James Oakes, New York Review of Books
A total of 305,000 enslaved Africans arrived in the New World aboard American vessels over a span of two hundred years as American merchants and mariners sailed to Africa and to the Caribbean to acquire and sell captives. Using exhaustive archival research, including many collections that have never been used before, historian Sean M. Kelley argues that slave trading needs to be seen as integral to the larger story of American slavery.
Engaging with both African and American history and addressing the trade over time, Kelley examines the experience of captivity, drawing on more than a hundred African narratives to offer a portrait of enslavement in the regions of Africa frequented by American ships. Kelley also provides a social history of the two American ports where slave trading was most intensive, Newport and Bristol, Rhode Island.
In telling this tragic, brutal, and largely unknown story, Kelley corrects many misconceptions while leaving no doubt that Americans were a nation of slave traders.
“A work of impressive breadth, deep research, and evenhanded analysis.”—James Oakes, New York Review of Books
A total of 305,000 enslaved Africans arrived in the New World aboard American vessels over a span of two hundred years as American merchants and mariners sailed to Africa and to the Caribbean to acquire and sell captives. Using exhaustive archival research, including many collections that have never been used before, historian Sean M. Kelley argues that slave trading needs to be seen as integral to the larger story of American slavery.
Engaging with both African and American history and addressing the trade over time, Kelley examines the experience of captivity, drawing on more than a hundred African narratives to offer a portrait of enslavement in the regions of Africa frequented by American ships. Kelley also provides a social history of the two American ports where slave trading was most intensive, Newport and Bristol, Rhode Island.
In telling this tragic, brutal, and largely unknown story, Kelley corrects many misconceptions while leaving no doubt that Americans were a nation of slave traders.
496 pages, Hardcover
Published May 30, 2023
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109 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 23, 2023
Excellent, in-depth study of America’s role in the slave trade, not just in supplying slaves to the US (which represented just a small portion of overall activity), but also in supplying slaves to Cuba, Brazil and other Caribbean islands. Newport and Bristol, Rhode Island emerge as major slaver ports - something their local Chambers of Commerce don’t play up today. In fact, one of the biggest eye-openers here is the degree to which Northern merchants were complicit in the slave trade. Very few slave ships originated out of Southern ports. There is a high level of detail here and it is incredibly well-researched.
December 19, 2023
Historian Sean Kelley has written, perhaps, the most definitive account of the business in dealing and transporting human beings from a North American perspective. As with many books that detail how a business or economic system can bring out the worst in humanity, Hannah Arendt’s quote on the banality of evil readily comes to mind. Kelley steeps himself in unsavory banal details that chart American involvement in both the American slave trade (which was by no means dominated by American shipping and traders) and the global trade, particularly transporting slaves to Cuba and Brazil, a pursuit which remained quasi-legal to American mariners. The result, the encyclopedic American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865, should be read by any literate mariner and anyone interested in the legal and illegal business of trafficking human beings in the time span mentioned in the title.
Sean Kelley is an old-school academic, not an idealogue. In lieu of preaching, he presents facts and evaluates them forensically for what we can definitively conclude about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. We live in an age of hysteria where the Left and Right in the U.S.A. accuse each other of manipulating data to favor a skewed perspective, or of “revisionist history,” a term thrown around by bitter conservatives so that they might monopolize an obviously unsavory narrative in perpetuity, whitewashing it.* I have not read the NY Times’ The 1619 Project, nor do I care to stomach the white Republican reaction to it. Let Kelley’s book substitute as my perspective since its dry, phlegmatic historian prose is meant to convey deduced fact and not argue in a manner attempting to assign proportional guilt and quibble over interpretations. Suffice to state that slavery is an evil and an evil well entrenched in US history and economics.
If you want to simply educate yourself on the laws, logistics, business and day-to-day operations of American involvement in the transporting Africans throughout the East Coast of the USA, Louisianna, Cuba and the Caribbean, and Brazil, then American Slavers is for you. You may want to slit your wrists while engaging in necessary chapter breaks and despair at the banal inhumanity of mankind, but attaining knowledge involves inherent risks to one’s soul. And the risks are in the banal details. After reading this book, you will have a graduate-level conception of U.S. involvement in profiting from the trafficking in human labor so far as (but certainly not limited to):
--The economic and banking system in colonial Newport, RI which encouraged the trade.
--The intricate national and tribal network within Africa which allowed for the dealing of slaves, especially for rum in the case of American traders. Kelley is especially well-versed in African history and the perspective of what the trade signified within different African nations.
--How the ships were crewed and how reflagging was exploited to skirt laws of various nations.
--How auxiliary or helping ships enabled the whole operation, e.g. American ships often transported chains and other implements of the trade because, after the War of 1812, they could not be searched by the British. Ah the ingenuity of Man!
As a hawsepiper mariner, I found the logistics of the trade and a socio-economic evaluation of both officers and common seamen to be particularly fascinating. So much of maritime involves shady cargo and companies** just trying to make a pretty profit or survive. Wherever there is a law, there are ten people ready to exploit or skirt the law.
American Slavers is by no means an easy read; I needed six weeks to slowly slog through it (though reading straight history is not a forte of mine). However, after reading this book, one comes away with a feeling of accomplishment and a better grasp at the immorality of certain business pursuits, particularly those involving “cheap” labor. Humankind at its creepiest.
--------------------------------
*This statement is certainly not intended to imply that systemic racism is not entrenched in American culture or that Republicans have a point in minimizing the economic impact of slavery on the rise of the U.S.A. Conservatives who debate the above are tiresome knee-jerks. There is no way to minimize the effects of slavery.
**In the case of the slavers, the Captains and supercargoes often doubled as majority stake holders in the venture.
Sean Kelley is an old-school academic, not an idealogue. In lieu of preaching, he presents facts and evaluates them forensically for what we can definitively conclude about the trans-Atlantic slave trade. We live in an age of hysteria where the Left and Right in the U.S.A. accuse each other of manipulating data to favor a skewed perspective, or of “revisionist history,” a term thrown around by bitter conservatives so that they might monopolize an obviously unsavory narrative in perpetuity, whitewashing it.* I have not read the NY Times’ The 1619 Project, nor do I care to stomach the white Republican reaction to it. Let Kelley’s book substitute as my perspective since its dry, phlegmatic historian prose is meant to convey deduced fact and not argue in a manner attempting to assign proportional guilt and quibble over interpretations. Suffice to state that slavery is an evil and an evil well entrenched in US history and economics.
If you want to simply educate yourself on the laws, logistics, business and day-to-day operations of American involvement in the transporting Africans throughout the East Coast of the USA, Louisianna, Cuba and the Caribbean, and Brazil, then American Slavers is for you. You may want to slit your wrists while engaging in necessary chapter breaks and despair at the banal inhumanity of mankind, but attaining knowledge involves inherent risks to one’s soul. And the risks are in the banal details. After reading this book, you will have a graduate-level conception of U.S. involvement in profiting from the trafficking in human labor so far as (but certainly not limited to):
--The economic and banking system in colonial Newport, RI which encouraged the trade.
--The intricate national and tribal network within Africa which allowed for the dealing of slaves, especially for rum in the case of American traders. Kelley is especially well-versed in African history and the perspective of what the trade signified within different African nations.
--How the ships were crewed and how reflagging was exploited to skirt laws of various nations.
--How auxiliary or helping ships enabled the whole operation, e.g. American ships often transported chains and other implements of the trade because, after the War of 1812, they could not be searched by the British. Ah the ingenuity of Man!
As a hawsepiper mariner, I found the logistics of the trade and a socio-economic evaluation of both officers and common seamen to be particularly fascinating. So much of maritime involves shady cargo and companies** just trying to make a pretty profit or survive. Wherever there is a law, there are ten people ready to exploit or skirt the law.
American Slavers is by no means an easy read; I needed six weeks to slowly slog through it (though reading straight history is not a forte of mine). However, after reading this book, one comes away with a feeling of accomplishment and a better grasp at the immorality of certain business pursuits, particularly those involving “cheap” labor. Humankind at its creepiest.
--------------------------------
*This statement is certainly not intended to imply that systemic racism is not entrenched in American culture or that Republicans have a point in minimizing the economic impact of slavery on the rise of the U.S.A. Conservatives who debate the above are tiresome knee-jerks. There is no way to minimize the effects of slavery.
**In the case of the slavers, the Captains and supercargoes often doubled as majority stake holders in the venture.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews