Transatlantic Slave Trade - Vocabulary Flashcards

Overview of today’s session

• Method and aim: Combine history and sociology through historical sociology to interpret history. Use the history of slavery to learn concepts that can be carried through the course.
• Quick primer: brief basics of the Transatlantic slave trade to ground discussion of slavery in the Americas.
• Emphasis throughout: not only the scale of the trade, but its social death, interpersonal dynamics, and long-term social meanings.

Slavery: broad historical context

• Slavery has existed throughout human history and continues today; it is not unique to the Americas.
• Two distinctive features of the Transatlantic slave trade, setting it apart from other historical slavery patterns:
  -racial slavery: the development and enforcement of racial ideology applied to particular racialized bodies.
  -embedding in global capitalism: slavery connected to and sustained by capitalist markets and processes.
• Slavery in Africa and Europe before contact with the Americas:
  • Africa: a great diversity of enslaving practices across empires, stateless societies, and varied cultures.
  • Europe: by roughly the 13th century, slavery was declining; Christian doctrine argued that Christians should not enslave other Christians, shaping later justifications for enslaving non-Christians through war and conquest.
• Europeans did not introduce slavery to Africa; instead, contact between Africa and Europe produced a new form of enslavement that became the Transatlantic slave trade.
• Origin debates in the literature:
  • Winthrop Jordan: racialist thinking precedes European contact with Africa; racism justified slavery from the outset of contact.
  • Cedric Robinson: European racialism existed, and encounter with Africa and the New World expanded and transformed it.
• Etymology note: the word "slave" in English derives from historical distinctions tied to Slavic peoples (Slav) in earlier European contexts; the concept of belonging and difference was transformed through later encounters.
• Edmund Morgan’s view (in Patterson’s framework): early colonial coerced labor in America was not purely racialized; race as a category of oppression developed over the 17th century in the Atlantic world.

The Atlantic world and the triangular trade

• The Triangular Trade describes a global system linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
• Data and visualization (contextual, not focusing only on numbers):
  • Major portion of forcibly embarked Africans ended up in the Caribbean and Brazil; Jamaica received more captives than the entire United States.
  • By the 17th century, most slave ships and the trade routes moved from Great Britain toward the Caribbean; later, a significant flow went to the Chesapeake region and parts of New England (e.g., Massachusetts).
  • There was no single unified legal system of enslavement across the colonies at first; each charter colony had its own laws, and slavery developed piecemeal.
• Scale of the trade (contextual figures):
  • Rough overall estimate of Africans transported forcibly: 12 ext{-}13\,\text{million}.
  • The distribution of destinations shifted over time, with a heavy emphasis on the Caribbean and Brazil, and substantial disembarkations in the Chesapeake and northern colonies.
• Important point: numbers matter for scale, but the focus of this course is on slavery’s social death, human impact, and interpersonal dynamics, not only on counts.

The Middle Passage and conditions aboard ships

• The voyage length: typically a minimum of about extapprox 3\,\text{months}, though conditions could extend this depending on winds and currents.
• Shipboard practices:
  • images of "hacking" reflect attempts to maximize profit through efficiency and commodification of bodies.
  • Two packing strategies:
  • tight packing: maximize number of people per shipment.
  • loose packing: fewer captives to reduce disease risk, but disease and disability remained core features.
• Human cost and trauma:
  • Disease, disability, death, and the psychological impact of confinement created lasting scars.
  • Resistance aboard ships: roughly one in ten slave ships experienced some form of mutiny or resistance by enslaved people or the crew.
• Labor exploitation and sex ratio:
  • The voyage and labor needs shaped the gendered and age composition of enslaved populations.
  • A disproportional sex ratio was often pursued to maximize labor extraction.
• Age structure in 1700:
  • Children accounted for about rac{1}{8} of the enslaved population.
• Social control on board:
  • Mechanisms of control were embedded in ship discipline due to resistance, fear, and the severe conditions of the voyage.
• The Middle Passage as a crucible of racialized social death and the commodification of life on a mass scale.

Natal alienation, social death, and the human cost

• A defining feature of the Transatlantic slave trade is the voyage itself and the social death that followed.
• Natal alienation: the severing of kinship ties and birthright, a form of psychological and social estrangement that persisted beyond the voyage.
• The psychological and moral effects included self-hatred and internalization of oppressive norms, a theme highlighted through primary sources and later critical theories.
• The relationship between violence, coercion, and socialization: violence is used not only to control bodies but to shape minds and cultural norms within enslaved communities and enslaver households.
• These dynamics extend beyond the shipboard environment to schools and other institutions where socialization and power shape beliefs and identities.

Power, race, and slavery: Patterson, Weber, and_Hegelian insights

• Patterson’s sociological framework (drawing on Max Weber): power has three facets:
  • Social power: control over social relations and structures.
  • Psychological power: control over beliefs, desires, and expectations.
  • Cultural power: control over meaning, norms, and values.
• Power in the master-slave dynamic:
  • Slavery can be understood as a social relation of domination where the slave is denied full humanity, and the master asserts absolute authority over the body.
  • Quotations from the primary sources emphasize that the master’s power must be absolute to enforce submission and to render the slave powerless within social and legal structures.
• The concept of social death and the “death sentence” analogy:
  • Enslavement often functioned as an alternative to death in war contexts; coercive labor becomes a substitute for a death sentence in the social order.
• Hegelian dialectic and power dynamics (referenced in class discussion):
  • The master’s sense of humanity can hinge on domination of the slave; the master may come to understand themselves through the slave’s absence or submission.
  • Questions about what happens if the master is removed and the social order destabilizes.
• Gender, sexuality, and violence: sexuality and gendered violence are integral to the power relations and debates around race and abolition.

Language, difference, and the construction of race

• From religious difference to racial difference:
  • Early distinctions often began with religion (Christians vs non-Christians) but gradually hardened into racialized distinctions that were visually identifiable.
  • The term slave ultimately connected to a broader racial hierarchy that extended beyond religious categories.
• The making of “Europeans” and “Africans”: historical constructs emerged in the contact and exchange of peoples; the sense of belonging (or othering) shaped social contracts and legal regimes.
• Religion and abolition debates:
  • Abolition debates occurred within Christian contexts, showing that religion could both justify and challenge slavery.
  • The life of enslaved women, such as Harriet Jacobs, demonstrates the complexity of religious belief and resistance under enslavement.
• The slavery-as-property argument (Afro-pessimism):
  • Frank Wilderson III’s Afro-pessimism reframes slavery as a relation of property where Black people are objectified and legally treated as commodities.
  • This ontological framing emphasizes how race structured moral and political imaginaries in the Western world.
• Afro-pessimism and ontological blackness:
  • The idea that Western philosophy and social structures render Blackness as nonhuman or nonagent within social contracts.
  • Theories engage with questions about possibility and possibility of liberation within anti-Blackness.
• Key terms and concepts to know:
  • Natal alienation, social death, racial slavery, Afro-pessimism, ontological Blackness, master-slave power dynamic, social control, resistance on ships.

Reading responses and scholarly practice: expectations and examples

• Purpose of reading responses:
  • Engage readings critically, put texts in conversation with one another, and connect to broader course themes.
  • Write in argumentative style and cite class sources.
• Writing guidance illustrated by sample student essays:
  • Strong essay (A): clear thesis, argumentative topic sentences, sustained argument, sources used to support, and sources controlled by the writer (not the other way around). Uses citations properly (Chicago or parenthetical). Integrates quotes without letting them dominate; uses sources to bolster original analysis.
  • A minus: solid self-argument, good topic sentences, multiple sources, but uses too many quotes and less analysis; stronger integration of sources with critical analysis would elevate the work.
  • B level: presence of a thesis and arguments, but over-reliance on quotes and/or sources not fully integrated into a distinct argument; variable voice.
  • C level: minimal engagement with readings; generic and non-specific commentary; risk of AI-like tone; lack of direct engagement with readings or page-level details.
• Practical guidelines:
  • Begin with a strong thesis and ensure every paragraph has a topic sentence that ties back to the thesis.
  • Use quotes strategically to support your argument; do not let quotes dominate your analysis.
  • Cite sources from class readings and linked primary sources; use PowerPoints as a starting point but rely on the assigned readings for depth.
  • Show synthesis: put readings in conversation with each other and with broader course themes.

Afro-pessimism and contemporary relevance

• Afro-pessimism offers a framework for analyzing ongoing anti-Blackness and the persistence of racial ideologies in modern societies.
• It challenges the assumption that race is simply a product of historical coercion, arguing instead that race operates as a structural category with ontological implications.
• The discussion of slavery as property and the enduring legacies in social, political, and cultural institutions helps illuminate current debates around justice and reparations.

Preparations for next week and reading assignments

• Primary reading: the book associated with the course (laboring women) – Introduction is assigned for Monday; the book is available as an ebook through the library.
• Monday’s class will spend time discussing the introduction and addressing questions about assignments.
• The next two classes will involve more in-depth discussion of chapters from the book; come prepared with questions and reading notes.
• If you need access to readings, check the library for the ebook; if not available, the instructor will post on the course site and provide guidance.
• Tips for success:
  • Bring notes and questions from today’s primer.
  • Be ready to discuss the reading responses’ expectations and how to craft high-quality arguments.

Key concepts and terms to remember

• Transatlantic slave trade; Middle Passage; triangular trade; tight vs loose packing; mutiny; natal alienation; social death; race as a social construct; Afro-pessimism; ontological Blackness; master-slave power dynamics; social, psychological, and cultural power; coercive labor vs. property relations; abolitionist debates; religious versus racial justifications; hegemony of capitalist systems in the slave trade; emergence of racial ideology in the Atlantic world.

Quick reference figures and facts (for exam use)

• Global range of Africans transported: 12{-}13\,\text{million}.
• Major destination emphasis by the 17th century: Caribbean and Brazil; significant disembarkations in the Chesapeake and New England.
• Proportion of enslaved children in 1700: rac{1}{8} of the enslaved population.
• Length of Middle Passage voyage: extapprox 3\,\text{months} (minimum, with variability).
• Mutiny rate on slave ships: roughly ext{one in ten} ships experienced some form of mutiny.