Summary Of The Slave Ship A Human History By Marcus Rediker

Marcus Rediker’s book The Slave Ship: A Human History has challenged the common idea that the true horrors of slavery happened after slavers sold the enslaved to various countries. He exposed the horrors of the middle voyage, specifically the long trek across the Atlantic, that is normally skipped over. Reviewing this perilous passage has allowed readers to learn and develop a better understanding of the diversity of cultures and the people that intertwined during the slave trade. It also sheds light on the pivotal role these European vessels had in the slave trade. Within his book, Rediker exposes the way relationships played out over the sea through four distinct ‘dramas’. By explaining and giving diverse tales of the dramas …show more content…
Samuel Robinson coined himself “the only man alive who served an apprenticeship to the slave trade” (20). By doing so, he was capable of documenting his journey from beginning to end. He stated a seemingly typical first experience on slave ship from getting seasick to being bullied by the older crew. Rediker explicitly describes one of Robinson’s captains, “drunken and tyrannical Captain John Ward”, who required him to work and lashed him when Robinson was considered as going too slow (21). After trying to disprove the horrors of the slave trade, Robinson ended his voyage by comparing himself to a “poor shallow skeleton” (22). This account truly sheds light into the slave trade because the ‘human cargo’ is talked about so often that the people who oversaw them were often left without being able to tell their own brutal and terrifying story. While Robinson told his story of a brutal ship without religion or discipline, John Newton made religious services imperative on his own ships. Rediker states that he “decided to hold mandatory prayers twice each Sunday” (175). However, his story wasn’t straight and narrow considering he spent most of his childhood in mischief and he usually ended up in jail and eventually becoming chained and abused like a slave. After returning to the slave trade, a captain from another vessel …show more content…
This drama started from abolitionists who were passionate and capitulating. Many famous abolitionists came from different backgrounds, including former slaves. Many abolitionists spent countless hours trying to peek into the slave’s life upon the monstrous ships. After countless tales of terror had been made abolitionist finally got through when an act passed to close ports to slave ships on March 2,