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Summary Of The Slave Ship A Human History By Marcus Rediker

1012 Words5 Pages

Marcus Rediker’s The Slave Ship: A Human History was about more than just the process of trading slaves, how the slaves travelled from Point A to Point B and what the traders did to the slaves during the trip. Rediker’s focus remained mainly on the aspect of the humanity of the slaves and the relationships that were forged between the people aboard the ship. Often it is forgotten that the slaves that were kidnapped and sold into slavery were, in fact, human beings. Instead the focus is directed towards statistics and individual events that happen aboard the ships rather than the names of the slaves and their backgrounds. While Marcus Rediker did describe the atrocities that occurred on slave ships, his overall goal and thesis was not focused …show more content…

The captains were to be emotionally removed from what they were doing mainly because they were involved in “a filthy business in almost every conceivable sense” (171). They were expected to be able to run a tight ship in every sense. They had to be able to control the massive amounts of humans that were aboard their ships, they needed to be unquestioned by the crew in their authority and thus, they were cold, hardened men (171-172). The captains were frequently noted to have treated their crew similarly to the way the crew treated the slaves (171). The captains may have shown the crew some kindness that was not shown to the slaves but it was few and far …show more content…

They followed the ships, consuming the bodies thrown overboard. While the crew was frightened by the presence of the sharks, the slaves were petrified of them (719). The captains made an effort to bury the bodies of their perished crew but the slaves were not so lucky (719). The captains used the sharks’ reputations to their advantage; they used them to keep the slaves from trying to escape by jumping overboard and their crew from attempting to desert (738). The sharks became so advantageous to the captains that they went so far as to keep the sharks fed in order to ensure the sharks would continuously follow their

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