The Slave Ship: A Human History

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

The Slave Ship examines the physical and social environment of the slave ship as a microcosm of the transatlantic slave trade. Rediker argues that the slave ship itself was a “floating factory” (135), a machine designed to take in captured Africans and turn out enslaved people. As such, the subject of the book is not necessarily interested in tackling the vessels from a nautical or engineering perspective but from their industrializing effect on the human body. Through the slave ship, Rediker hopes to shed light on the holistic and deliberate brutality of the slave trade as an industry. The first slave ships were repurposed from regular ships. Over the course of the centuries of experience and profits, however, they began to be custom built in accordance with the needs of the captains and merchants. Slavery was such a profitable industry that old technology was repurposed and adapted, transforming a traditional industry according to the demands and circumstances of the slave trade. Old ships could be adapted for the slave trade, but merchants and captains sought to refine and perfect their factory for maximum efficiency.