Book description
This bold, innovative book promises to radically alter our understanding of the Atlantic slave trade, and the depths of its horrors. Stephanie E. Smallwood offers a penetrating look at the process of enslavement from its African origins through the Middle Passage and into the American slave market.
Smallwood's story isā¦
Why read it?
3 authors picked Saltwater Slavery as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book really helped me to look beyond slave trading merchantsā papers to think about the lived realities of the slave trade for those merchantsā victims.
Smallwood follows enslaved people from their initial sale on the African coast, aboard the slave ships, and then through their sale and seasoning in the English Americasāa model that brilliantly exposes the multi-staged way that captive Africans were commodified within the slave trade.
Saltwater Slavery also details the experiences of enslaved people within the trade, especially the mental and physical trauma that they suffered aboard the slave ships.Ā
From Nicholas' list on how the Atlantic slave trade operated.
Relying primarily on Royal African Company records, Smallwood reconstructs the forced migration and enslavement of approximately 300,000 African men, women, and children who were transported in English ships from the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) to the Americas between 1675 and 1725. She traces their dehumanizing journey from captivity in European forts on the West African coast through commodification at sea to sale in slave markets in the Caribbean and North America.
Through careful analysis of quantitative data, Smallwood tracks the processes of commodification that underwrote the transatlantic slave trade while simultaneously foregrounding the human experience of captivity and migration. Thisā¦
From Brooke's list on Britain and Atlantic slavery.
This book examines the interaction between Europeans and Africans in the Gold Coast slave trade during the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries, bringing the people aboard slave ships to life. Joseph C. Miller writes "No study of the Atlantic slave trade has attempted to penetrate the darkness of those ships' holds, to explore what might have gone on in the minds of the hundreds of nameless people trapped below decksāuntil now. Smallwood gets there through a tour de force of theoretical sophistication, sensitive informed imagination, and dramatic writing. Hers is the most original and provocative book on the Middle Passage inā¦
From Manu's list on the Transatlantic slave trade for serious scholars.
If you love Saltwater Slavery...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancĆ©, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Heddaā¦
Want books like Saltwater Slavery?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Saltwater Slavery.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,340
readers submitted
so far, will you?
š If you like Saltwater Slavery, you might also like...
Foxfire in the Snow
It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin canāt quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with theā¦
The Main Gate
Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the pastāuntil the past refuses to stay buried.
Hired to join Earthās first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her beā¦
