Author: Dr. Shrout

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Revolts were a serious threat on board of slave ships sailing in the Atlantic. Oftentimes, the crews were outnumbered by the ship’s slaves eight to one. Yet Smallwood points out many historical examples where captives on slave ships were called on to assist their captors, whether it be in defending against an enemy ship, preparing food, or keeping their fellow captives in line.Every chance and and opportunity to rebel were not always taken advantage of by the captives. Smallwood examines how slave ships were able to maintain control. Not only did the captives of slave ships face physical restraints, armed oppressors, but also other captives empowered and granted privileges by the captors. These were know as guardians. Guardians were captives who received their position as a result of social dominance on the ships. The guardians that came from the Gold Coast were from separate communities other than those of the rest of the slaves. Guardians could be male or female. One reason the use of guardians came about may be the result of an agreement between the Royal African Company and the slave traders. Slave ship captains understood the hazards of utilizing guardians. It was imperative for ships’ crews to rely on maintaining social control because they knew they did not have sufficinet manpower, weapons, tools, etc. in the event of a revolt. While guardians had the power to ignite revolts, they did not dare bite the hand that feeds them. Many believed their position of power and privilege would continue on after the voyage. It is for these reasons that Smallwood argues the use of guardians enabled slave ships to maintain order and control effectively despite guardians being captives themselves.

Classmate Matt Everett points out that the Iberians’ contact with the civilizations of the new world was similar to Europeans contact with the African coasts. Initially trade was the motivation, but in both cases this changed and would lead to European exploitation of the land indigenous people. This is a repetitive trend in Atlantic history.

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Stephanie Smallwood’s work “African Guardians, European Slave ships and the Changing Dynamics of Power in the early Modern Atlantic” exists to educate people on the dynamics of power, aboard Slave carrying vessels that once sailed the Atlantic. It is commonly taught in American schools that the hierarchy of power aboard slave ships crossing the Atlantic was rigid and only existed as follows, Crew > Slaves. Smallwood challenges that assumption with the introduction of a third group in that hierarchy that awkwardly takes its place between the European crew members and the slaves aboard the ship.

This group was the African born “Guardians “that watched over the rest of the slaves on board the vessel, looking for signs of insurrection. Guardians were often members of a different ethnicity so that familial ties did not compromise their loyalty to the crew. Guardians loyalty to the crew was acquired in various ways including, the promise of freedom, the feeling of superiority acquired from holding the position and better food/boarding available to them. While freedom was sometimes promised to Guardians that promise was rarely kept and they often met the same fate as those they guarded.

Since their fate was the same as those they guarded, their position was largely an empty one but, it’s still provides us with a more diverse hierarchy than the one we are often taught. The fact that some slaves were given elevated status despite still being viewed as “property” shows just how illogical the race based institution of slave was.

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In the late 15^th and 16^th centuries Spain and Portugal ventured west towards the Americas on a dangerous, but potentially lucrative exploration. Motives for the journey included gold, evangelism and cheap labor. Viewing indigenous populations as possible capital, Columbus captured Taino people and put them on a ship back to Spain. Columbus was met with aggression from the Taino as he began to abandon a trade based occupation in favor of a “town-based pattern of colonization.” (Egerton 87) Nicolas de Ovando would replace Columbus as Governor of the Indies in 1502, but patterns of extreme aggression and rebellion continued. Southern expansion meant ongoing exploitation of native populations. Spanish attempts at cultural integration led to the disappearance of any semblance of native culture.

Portugal was slower to adopt the Spanish patterns of colonization in the Americas, instead looking to the East for resource acquisition. The trade centered economy that Portugal chose to keep was more benevolent than Spain’s slave based model, but still far from desirable for indigenous people. The Portuguese took trips back to Brazil intermittently where they would trade goods for brazilwood, and until the mid-sixteenth century. Demand for production and France’s claim to Brazil led the Portuguese crown to begin an aggressive colonization of the country, and by 1570 the French were replaced by Portuguese colonists and African slaves to be used for dangerous and labor intensive sugar cultivation.

It would be easy to follow the common narrative that the Spanish were exceptionally cruel. In reality they were what would be commonly known today as “entrepreneurs.” Driven by the prospect of wealth and a cloak of piety the Spanish sought to expand their empire by any means necessary. The Portuguese realized they were competing with other growing European nations and made the economically pragmatic decision to capitalize on the burgeoning sugar trade using free Black labor. Slaves became logistics for boats full of merchandise. Nations were shaped by colonialism and histories were lost because of it. All for gold. Which is not even used to back currency anymore.

“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”

― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

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In order to analyze the way that slaves were transported across the Atlantic and how they dealt with the situations they were placed in, we need to look at the relationships they had with each other and the English sailors who captured and took them across. Smallwood dives into the different ways that slaves were treated during the long voyage across the Atlantic, suggesting that some slaves were chosen to be “guardians.(Smallwood, 683).” This sheds some light on the types of relationships that these English sailors had to develop in order to maintain control.

Matthew talks about this in his response of the reading where he states: “the camaraderie between guardians and slaves can be the must powerful weapon because it brings people together and forms bonds.” One would think that with the trust that is placed in these slave guardians that there was often struggles on the voyages, but according to Smallwood there is not much evidence to suggest that. Smallwood suggests that these guardians worked to help their captors rather than those they were enslaved with(Smallwood, 685). This sort of social control seems opposite to the type of “naked physical force” that Smallwood talks about in the early parts of the article.

This opens up different ways of looking at how slaves interacted with their captors and how they handled being given power themselves in new situations. It reinforces the idea that human relationships are complex and more complicated than the binaries we tend to confine them to be when thinking historically.

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