Reversing Sail Quotes

“As was true throughout the Americas, newly arriving Africans, referred to as “fresh” or “saltwater” blacks, often underwent a painful period of adjustment known as “seasoning,” lasting up to three years. It was during this time that captives became enslaved, whereas prior to disembarkation anything was possible, including mutiny. Seasoning involved acclimating to a new environment, new companions, strange languages and food, and new living arrangements. Above all, seasoning involved adjusting to life and work under conditions cruel and lethal. As a result of brutal treatment, the shock of the New World, disease, and the longing for home, between 25 and 33 percent of the newly arrived did not survive seasoning.”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora

“The transatlantic transport of all of these various Africans to the Americas qualifies as the quintessential moment of transfiguration, the height of human alienation and disorientation.”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora

“In discussing the slave trade, it is essential to view those trafficked first and foremost as human beings, with families, cultures, and sensibilities – no different from anyone else.”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora

“But many, perhaps most, did resist, and resistance assumed many forms, covert and overt, sporadic and continuous, direct and indirect. It is probably a mistake to think of resistance as a continuum, ranging from “sassing massa” in the lower register to becoming maroons and organizing revolution in the highest. First of all, individuals who experienced any substantial length of life may have made any number of decisions, and over time they would have exhibited various”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora

“The concept of race, the notion that human beings can be clearly differentiated into basic, hierarchically arranged categories based upon certain combinations of shared physical characteristics, developed in tandem with slavery. The concept emphasizes difference rather than commonality, and as a tool of power and privilege it has few rivals. The specifics of race would vary throughout the Americas, but the essence of the idea was consistent: Whites and blacks, as categories of contrasting mythical purity, also represent the concentration of power, wealth, and beauty in the former case and the absence of such in the latter. Native peoples, Asians, and persons of “mixed”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora

“In addition to working as hard as men, women and girls were susceptible to sexual exploitation in ways and at rates that did not apply to men (the subject of males as victims of sexual assault has received little scholarly attention, with the exception of lynching and its attendant castration ritual). Absentee owners had to rely on managers and overseers, both white and black, who viewed sexual access as their right. Many enslaved children resulted from these unions; the question of how these interactions should be understood is a matter of debate. The rewards of voluntary cooperation could have included”
― Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora