POSTS

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The abolishment of slavery in the Atlantic is such a fascinating case study. The omniscient perspective that we have now, lets us see how remarkably twisted and delusional the slavery advocates were in that time. In a time period where people were beginning to argue about what it meant to be human and what rights came with life, people were still OK owning another human being. The Founding Fathers wrote “all men are created equal” in a time period where they themselves owned slaves. This chapter was great for showing the different ways people viewed slavery in the Atlantic.

Isaias wrote his blog post about the effect that slavery had on the economy during the time period. The question of slavery’s effect on the economy is a critical one to consider and as sad as it sounds, was possibly the strongest argument the pro-slavery camp had. Slavery at this time was a big business. The actual practice of transporting and selling slaves was not the big money maker. It was the free labor provided by the slaves that had the largest economic impact on the Atlantic. Justice William Mansfield was aware of the impact that freeing thousands of slaves at once would have on the world. He was not in favor of slavery and actually ruled to have Charles Stewart freed of his enslavement. He was, however, aware that while slavery was unethical and difficult to defend, the economy and society were simply not ready for the mass release of 10,000+ slaves in England. This theory was not contained in England alone. It was spread throughout the Atlantic. I believe this fear of economic repercussion is one the main reasons that slavery was eliminated in such a slow, gradual way. Rather than ended the cruel practice immediately, society chose to allow the process to take nearly two centuries in order to protect their economic prosperity.

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Historical Context on Final Project

The Atlantic Ocean played a critical role throughout not only World War II but also World War I. This prestigious ocean allowed trade routes and supply lines to cross over its vast girth and provide allied forces the necessary supply to take control over the various European fronts. Economically the United Kingdom for years had heavily relied on trade across the Atlantic. Long before the war began Europe, Africa and the Americas had been engaged in trade. The Atlantic Ocean served as the gateway for mass slave trade throughout the world and offered trade routes to numerous countries which meant high profit for both parties. It was not always about profit as it also became a means of sustainability and building communities.

The United Kingdom couldn’t grow or produce certain trade goods that the Americas could and vice versa for the Americas. The exploration of these new goods, land and cultures of life, sparked a new movement of discovery, which allowed the Atlantic Ocean to soar onto the map in the ever-expanding world and as a key player of history. The Axis powers understood the Allied powers reliance on these supply lines, so fighting for control of the supply lines from North America to Europe became very critical and a prime target for the Axis powers to go after. However, this proved to be too much for the German’s to manage as they ultimately failed.[i] The importance of Atlantic seas control is sometimes overshadowed by the large land battles that took place during World War.

U.S. Escort carriers and their hunts for German U-boats, played a larger role than given credit for. A great amount of intricate planning went into designing patterns and routes for locating and finding the German U-boats. Although not always engaged in battles or mentioned as much as the convoys, the escort carriers had just as significant impact as they played a crucial role in protecting the convoys. However, as per Y’Blood there was quite a controversy whether the carriers should have gone after the U-boats themselves rather than playing protector of the convoys.[ii] Another critical factor discussed within the source was the Allied sources ability to gather intelligence. This largely in thanks to Enigma, an informational intelligence system that provided the Allied force a huge step up throughout the war and allowed for the escort carriers to be positioned accurately to take out the U-boat threats.[iii] With the introduction of Enigma, technology played a crucial role as well in the Battle of the Atlantic. German U-boats had the upper hand against the Allied forces until better development of radar capabilities.[iv] With these new developments the Axis powers soon faced a newly energized and effective Allied navy. Through the study of these sources, new light will be brought into the Battle of the Atlantic and how the U.S. escort carriers and German U-boats operated and functioned and what their overall intentions were while fighting the war.

The great thing about the primary sources and secondary sources from this era is that they allow perspective from both Axis and Allied forces. Stress is also placed upon the importance of the sea operations that helped drive the War and Allied victory. Maps given within sources or sources themselves create visuals and demonstrate the large span geographically that the Atlantic Ocean and the battle of Atlantic took place and all the key components that were necessary for strategic operations.[v] Oral histories, and journals as or within sources, open clearer understanding of the anxiety sailors faced and the seriousness of naval warfare. The patterns shown within sources demonstrate how the Allied forces approached and strategically implemented to eliminate enemy opposition and gain an advantage in the war. Without such patterns, many more U-boats may have escaped and wreaked havoc on more Allied forces.

The biggest area I would love to see this area expanded on is what is known as the black pit which was the most dangerous part of the Atlantic Ocean and consumed many lives. It is mentioned in several sources but lacks an in-depth discussion of the impact it had during the war. This location also known as the mid-Atlantic gap was prime for Axis powers to attack allied forces as they lacked the technology for air cover and other technological advances. Because this was such a deadly location and crossing for many Allied forces not many sources seem to survive and it seems arduous to track down sources from Axis powers.

[i]Milner, Marc. 2003. Battle of the Atlantic. Stroud, Gloustershire, U.K.: St. Catherine’s, Ontario, U.K.: Tempus; Vanwell. 35.

[ii] Y’Blood, William T. 2004. Hunter-killer; U.S. Escort Carriers in the Battle of the Atlantic. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press. 273.

[iii] Y, Blood, William T. Hunter-Killer. 273

[iv]Rayner, Denys Arthur. 1955. Escort: The Battle of the Atlantic. London: W. Kimber. 157.

[v] “Battle of the Atlantic”, Map, University of Minnesota Libraries, Manuscripts Division, Blake, F. Donald (1908-1997), Created 1944. http://umedia.lib.umn.edu/node/46228

Working Bibliography

2012. Athenia Torpedoed: The U-Boat Attack That Ignited the Battle of the Atlantic. Publishers Weekly. 259, no. 32: 46.

“Battle of the Atlantic”, Map, University of Minnesota Libraries, Manuscripts Division, Blake, F. Donald (1908-1997), Created 1944. http://umedia.lib.umn.edu/node/46228

Koster, John. 2016. Tightrope Walker: At the Close of the Battle of the Atlantic a Long-range German U-boat Played a Deadly Cat and Mouse with American Warships and Aircraft. Military History. 33, no. 2: 22.

Lambert, Andrew. 2016. Britain, Germany and the Battle of the Atlantic: A Comparative Study. by Dennis Haslop . (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press, 2014. Pp. Xii, 310. $120.00. Historian. 78, no. 2: 382-384.

Offley, Edward. 2011. Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic. New York: Basic Books.

Rayner, Denys Arthur. 1955. Escort: The Battle of the Atlantic. London: W. Kimber.

Snow, Richard F. 2010. A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight …read more

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The central thesis in Atlantic History, Chapter 14 is that economic factors ultimately proved decisive in the abolition of slavery in the 19^th century. Noting the importance of moralists, philosophers, and evangelicals in early British anti-slavery movements, the authors stressed that moral underpinnings alone did not succeed in swaying public opinion against the institution. As they asserted on page 477, “the more profitable slavery became, the more property rights trumped social evils.” This establishes a direct relationship between the prevalence of slavery and its profitability, and characterizes the immorality linked to chattel bondage as altogether ineffective in dissuading it. Indeed, a huge obstacle to abolishing slavery was the fact it became such a lucrative institution that greatly enriched the British Empire and Atlantic cities (a concept discussed in a previous chapter) such as Liverpool and Bristol. Tellingly, a quarter of all slaves bought and sold during the course of the slave trade were transported after 1808, the year the British and the United States both formally barred it (477).

It was only once suitable replacements of labor could be found and the sustenance of slavery became too costly that abolition efforts actually took root among the worst offenders. In the British colony of Jamaica, a series of rebellions including those documented in Vincent Brown’s Slave Revolt in Jamaica convinced planters to abandon the practice (477). Similarly, the declining cost of immigrant labor coupled with mounting international pressure finally lead to Brazil’s complete outlawing of slavery in 1888 (481). As my classmate Marissa Cervantes notes, mass European commodification of Atlantic goods “created the demand for labor, which resulted in the demand of millions of enslaved people for labor.” The demand for labor, whether via indentured servitude, captive slaves, or voluntary migrant workers, simply needed to be filled, and proved a great hindrance to abolition efforts in the 19^th century. Only when economic factors permitted did slavery die out as an Atlantic institution.

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Chapter 14 explains the restructuring of the global environment with new migration patterns through the Atlantic World. This chapter explains the trend from a regional network to now a global network through trade, production, and economics throughout the Atlantic. The reason of globalization throughout the Atlantic is new migration because people moving from various countries throughout the Atlantic are starting and creating their own production and communities in the United States, Canada, Africa, and the Caribbean. Imperial networks help create migration in economic markets with various countries around the 1850s. Contract workers also travelled to the Atlantic because places like East Asia started migrating through regional labor through China resulted in migration to the Caribbean and the United States (Chapter 14, Page 490). Silver that was developed in American mines has traveled through Europe for economic success, also has moved into the Pacific and Asia. Sugar became successful in the Atlantic because plantation started on local land, later became global and was shipped through boat, railroad, and steamboats to help created sugar factories throughout the Atlantic. Years later, the United States would eventually replace Britain as the dominant economic and political power in the Atlantic because of very successful economics in cotton, silver, gold, and plantation. (Chapter 14, Page 492). These investment and global networks helped changed the Atlantic history because what started as plantations, later lead into very successful factories and companies throughout the World. This reminds of Erin’s post from Steven Beckert’s reading relating to Cotton. Cotton started like Silver in regional investments, later created a global markets throughout the Atlantic. The amount of Cotton increased during the Civil War and other countries began creating cotton factories and growing cotton on rural land. The reason industrialization increased outside the United States and Europe because of very success production like Cotton and Silver that created a global market for the future along with very successful business for the future. These investments in cotton and silver help created a better global economics because operations in increased in various markets across the Atlantic and helped created better commerce through Atlantic history.

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On April 13, 1861, Confederate forces launched a cannon barrage on the Union garrison occupying Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This act of aggression signaled the start of the American Civil War. When we think of the Civil War as the conflict over slavery between the industrial North and the agrarian South for the unity of our country. While slavery was crucial part of the war, what most people miss is the impact the Civil War had on the Atlantic world. Industrialized European nations like Great Britain and France relied on cotton imports from the American South. When the war started, the cotton trade was disrupted which caused a ripple effect throughout the Atlantic world. Even though they were not directly involved in the conflict, Great Britain and France’s symbiotic relationship with the American South caused the European textile industry to be thrown into chaos. That leads to the focus of my final project. Due to the American Civil War, the production of cotton changed from a slave based economy to a system based on the manufacturing model. This change not only affected the United States and Europe, but it’s impact was felt worldwide.

Before the war, the American South was the leading cotton producer in the world. In his article, “Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War,” Sven Beckert states that Civil War and the resulting cotton famine changed the cotton economy by shattering the planter-slave dynamic and having it replaced with a manufacturer-worker economy. Beckert states that the South produced over a billion pounds of raw cotton to European nations before the war.[1] Sticking to their antiquated system and their dominance in the market, the South relied on Europe’s hunger for cotton to keep themselves in power.[2] When the war broke out, Union warships established a blockade around Southern ports. This blockade not only stopped goods from Europe on the way to Southern ports, but it also reduced the flow of cotton to Europe. A prideful people, the Confederacy saw this as a threat to their sovereignty as new emerging nation, so they implemented a self-imposed embargo on Southern cotton. According to David M. Potter, the Southern embargo would force Great Britain and France to come to the aid of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade.[3] Using cotton as a bargaining chip, the South gambled on Europe’s need for American cotton. The gamble did not pay off and the South suffered economic destruction because of their pride.[4]

On the other side of the Atlantic, both Great Britain and France were both feeling the sting of the Union blockade and the embargo. As a result, Europe in 1862 suffered from the “cotton famine.”[5] According to Beckert, the result of the “famine,” led to the closing of textile factories in Lancashire which led to thousands of unemployed factory workers.[6] In his article, “A Reconsideration of the Lancashire ‘Cotton Famine’,” Eugene A. Brady states that there was no physical “cotton famine” because before the war, the South overproduced and shipped excess raw cotton He goes on to say that the oversaturation of cotton products on the market led to a depression in Lancashire.[7] Even though Great Britain played with the idea of breaking the blockade,[8] they were in the process of finding self-sufficient cotton market. They looked at Brazil, Egypt, the West Indies, and India. Even though the quality of Indian cotton is substandard to American cotton,[9] Great Britain found that their colony India was capable of meeting the demands of the British textile industry.[10] As a result, Gujarat, Deccan, and Khandesh became the biggest cotton producers in India. In order to control the means of production, Great Britain established new laws which limited communal land and placed the burden of success on the individual.[11] Since the regions were not close to Bombay City, which was the main cotton port in the 1860s, it took the cotton up to sixty days to travel from harvest to the port.[12] In order to bring the cotton to market sooner, Great Britain initiated the infrastructure investments which established railroads to port cities.[13] According to Frenise A. Logan, the standard of living rose in India, especially with the ryot, who were growing the cotton. Because of the high price of cotton, Logan goes on to say the ryot were able to pay off their debts.[14] Breckert paints a different picture of the ryot. He states that the ryot needed to take out loans to pay for land, seed, and tools. These loans were backed by the harvest potential of their cotton crop.[15] As a result, the landless agricultural workers rose to thirty to forty percent of the total population.[16] Whether it was beneficial for the indigenous population or not, India became the biggest cotton producer in the world until 1870.[17] The map from French civil engineer, Charles Joseph Minard will show the extent of the Indian cotton trade.

Today cotton is a simple staple and is readily available, but over 150 years ago countries who had the means to grow and control cotton welded immense power. All that changed during the American Civil War. The war smashed the old systems of cotton production and ushered in a new global economy based on free trade, capitalism, and imperialism.

[1] Sven Beckert, “Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War,” The American Historical Review 109, 5 (2004): 1408 – 1409, Accessed October 28, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/530931.

[2] Beckert, “Emancipation and Empire,” 1409.

[3] David M. Potter, “Jefferson Davis and the Political Factors in the Confederate Defeat.” In Why the North Won the Civil War, ed. David Herbert Donald. (New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2005), 97.

[4] …read more

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On April 13, 1861, Confederate forces launched a cannon barrage on the Union garrison occupying Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This act of aggression signaled the start of the American Civil War. When we think of the Civil War as the conflict over slavery between the industrial North and the agrarian South for the unity of our country. While slavery was crucial part of the war, what most people miss is the impact the Civil War had on the Atlantic world. Industrialized European nations like Great Britain and France relied on cotton imports from the American South. When the war started, the cotton trade was disrupted which caused a ripple effect throughout the Atlantic world. Even though they were not directly involved in the conflict, Great Britain and France’s symbiotic relationship with the American South caused the European textile industry to be thrown into chaos. That leads to the focus of my final project. Due to the American Civil War, the production of cotton changed from a slave based economy to a system based on the manufacturing model. This change not only affected the United States and Europe, but it’s impact was felt worldwide.

Before the war, the American South was the leading cotton producer in the world. In his article, “Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War,” Sven Beckert states that Civil War and the resulting cotton famine changed the cotton economy by shattering the planter-slave dynamic and having it replaced with a manufacturer-worker economy. Beckert states that the South produced over a billion pounds of raw cotton to European nations before the war.[1] Sticking to their antiquated system and their dominance in the market, the South relied on Europe’s hunger for cotton to keep themselves in power.[2] When the war broke out, Union warships established a blockade around Southern ports. This blockade not only stopped goods from Europe on the way to Southern ports, but it also reduced the flow of cotton to Europe. A prideful people, the Confederacy saw this as a threat to their sovereignty as new emerging nation, so they implemented a self-imposed embargo on Southern cotton. According to David M. Potter, the Southern embargo would force Great Britain and France to come to the aid of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade.[3] Using cotton as a bargaining chip, the South gambled on Europe’s need for American cotton. The gamble did not pay off and the South suffered economic destruction because of their pride.[4]

On the other side of the Atlantic, both Great Britain and France were both feeling the sting of the Union blockade and the embargo. As a result, Europe in 1862 suffered from the “cotton famine.”[5] According to Beckert, the result of the “famine,” led to the closing of textile factories in Lancashire which led to thousands of unemployed factory workers.[6] In his article, “A Reconsideration of the Lancashire ‘Cotton Famine’,” Eugene A. Brady states that there was no physical “cotton famine” because before the war, the South overproduced and shipped excess raw cotton He goes on to say that the oversaturation of cotton products on the market led to a depression in Lancashire.[7] Even though Great Britain played with the idea of breaking the blockade,[8] they were in the process of finding self-sufficient cotton market. They looked at Brazil, Egypt, the West Indies, and India. Even though the quality of Indian cotton is substandard to American cotton,[9] Great Britain found that their colony India was capable of meeting the demands of the British textile industry.[10] As a result, Gujarat, Deccan, and Khandesh became the biggest cotton producers in India. In order to control the means of production, Great Britain established new laws which limited communal land and placed the burden of success on the individual.[11] Since the regions were not close to Bombay City, which was the main cotton port in the 1860s, it took the cotton up to sixty days to travel from harvest to the port.[12] In order to bring the cotton to market sooner, Great Britain initiated the infrastructure investments which established railroads to port cities.[13] According to Frenise A. Logan, the standard of living rose in India, especially with the ryot, who were growing the cotton. Because of the high price of cotton, Logan goes on to say the ryot were able to pay off their debts.[14] Breckert paints a different picture of the ryot. He states that the ryot needed to take out loans to pay for land, seed, and tools. These loans were backed by the harvest potential of their cotton crop.[15] As a result, the landless agricultural workers rose to thirty to forty percent of the total population.[16] Whether it was beneficial for the indigenous population or not, India became the biggest cotton producer in the world until 1870.[17] The map from French civil engineer, Charles Joseph Minard will show the extent of the Indian cotton trade.

Today cotton is a simple staple and is readily available, but over 150 years ago countries who had the means to grow and control cotton welded immense power. All that changed during the American Civil War. The war smashed the old systems of cotton production and ushered in a new global economy based on free trade, capitalism, and imperialism.

[1] Sven Beckert, “Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War,” The American Historical Review 109, 5 (2004): 1408 – 1409, Accessed October 28, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/530931.

[2] Beckert, “Emancipation and Empire,” 1409.

[3] David M. Potter, “Jefferson Davis and the Political Factors in the Confederate Defeat.” In Why the North Won the Civil War, ed. David Herbert Donald. (New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2005), 97.

[4] …read more

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In 1742, a pirate ship attacks a Spanish ship off the coast of Georgia in a battle known as the Battle of Bloody Marsh. It was a fight to gain control of Florida and the Carolinas. During this time period, exploration was in full swing and countries were building their empires at a rather fast pace. Some, like the Spanish, did it for military supremacy while others like the Dutch and English did it for colonialism and imperialism. The picture I used as a primary source is tied to piracy because the Spanish over-expanded and other empires wanted a piece of their wealth. All this piracy started when the Spanish got rich off of trading minerals and expanding their empire.

Cortes’ exploration to the Americas in search of gold started in the 1500s because of the rumors and legends of gold brought back by explorers like Christopher Columbus. His discovery and gains inspired King Philip to expand his military is one of the main reasons Spain fell into poverty. While some ships and pirate operations were run by vagabond privateers like the Famous Captain Henry Morgan, others were actually licensed to raid Spanish Ships. One author, Lane uses statistics of taverns that were opened in Port Royal Jamaica as popular pit stops for pirates. He even talks about the town of Tortuga as a “trading post for buccaneers who established trade routes mostly in hides and cured meats (Lane, 97).” So, the port city of Tortuga was an important location for pirate activity and port cities like are a treasure trove of history in the story of pirates.

Besides pirate towns, we need to understand who the real pirates actually were. Richard Blakemore, author of “The Politics of piracy in the British Atlantic” makes his point clear when says the problem with defining pirates like “Francis Drake to Blackbeard [who] have been seen as both champions and murderers, and scholars have interrogated piracy as a historical concept (Blakemore, 159).” What he means by this is we associate pirates as these brave and dangerous individuals whereas scholars beg to differ. In addition, Shannon Lee Dawdy and Joe Bonni also describe how history pirates are viewed as “predators, outlaws, opportunists, raiders [and even] liberators (Dawdy and Bonni, 674). They were definitely opportunists as “they took advantage of Brazil’s rich trade (Klooster and Padula, 73).”

In contrast to raiding ships, one element of piracy is often overlooked and that is the sugar cultivation in the Canaries and Madeiras. “Sugar Islands” by Alberto Vierira explains the cultivation of sugar and the model it set up for colonialization and mercantilism set the precedent for turning to piracy in the Atlantic. Ample water sources, the soils and the establishment of plantations sparked the sugar movement in the Atlantic in places like the Caribbean and became an important commodity in Atlantic trade. One component of the history of pirates that stems from food is the fact that before they were raiders, they actually used to cook meat on the beaches of the Caribbean Islands. They would kill pigs on the islands and grill them over a fire pit made of sand called a boucan. The men tending this boucans were known as boucaniers by the French. But, the taste of money proved to be a lot stronger than the smell of pork on the beach. As a result, they turned to piracy around the 1600s and became known as buccaneers.

Lastly, pop culture has made a lasting impression on pirates thanks to movies like Disney`s “Pirates of the Caribbean” with Captain Jack Sparrow, a bumbling klutz of a pirate. In contrast, pirates were nowhere near as lovable because they were deadly in their tactics. We need to understand the real history of pirates because it will continue to detract from the real pirates when we keep sugarcoating and advertising Disney pirates because it will now be effective in telling the true story of these swashbucklers of the Atlantic. Pirates should only be portrayed as they appeared in history because it will keep any kind of perception of them accurate with history and help people understand they were not to be taken lightly at all. That way, “Pirates of the Caribbean” won`t brainwash some people into thinking the wrong way about these greedy opportunists of the Atlantic. To sum it all, the history of piracy in the Atlantic is the story of the European empires.

References

Blakemore, Richard J. “The Politics of Piracy in the British Atlantic, C. 1640–1649.” International Journal of Maritime History. 25, no. 2.: 159-172. 2013.

Dawdy, Shannon Lee, and Joe Bonni. “Towards a General Theory of Piracy.” Anthropological Quarterly. 85, no. 3: 673-699. 2012.

Klooster, Wim and Alfred Padula. The Atlantic World: Essays on Slavery, Migration, and Imagination. N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall. 2005.

Lane, Kris E. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750. N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. 1998.

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On September 6th, 1781, a slave ship Zong left the African coast with over four hundred slaves. During this time frame, slave commodities were very valuable for labor both domestic and plantation services. With the demand for slave labor so high, captains of slave ships often overlooked the regulations of ships and overcrowded their ships in order to gain more money. Often, it was successful on the captain’s part; however, it was usually bad, and more than often deadly news for the enslaved people who were being sold across the Atlantic. Like many ships at the time, the Zong’s captain Luke Collingwood had too many enslaved people on his ship during its voyage. The Zong massacre could have been avoided, but due to a mass of unfortunate mistakes it became an event that began to change the world.

After nearly three months at sea, slaves began dying due to disease and malnutrition. To make matters worse, the Zong sailed into an area that prolonged their stay at sea. As a result of it being stranded, nearly half the crew and fifty of the enslaved people died due to sickness. The Zong captain decided on throwing cargo overboard in order to save the ship and collect the insurance as a result. Over the next weeks, the surviving crew threw 132 slaves overboard. The crimes of the Zong Captain and crew did not go unnoticed. They did not get the insurance money, but instead they went to court. They did not realize that their greed and court case would later help abolish slavery in the future. Throughout time, people have dissected the Zong massacre as much as they could. And even though it was one ship that did what many other ships were doing, the Zong affected history and destroyed the future of slavery. Because of the various different ways authors took to interpret the unfortunate event that is the Zong massacre, authors create a more fleshed out narrative of an event that affected a world dependent on slavery.
In Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History describes the event as a “melancholic version of modernity” and”the process quite literally sounds the depths of the event-structure of historical meaning” (Juengel, 148). The massacre and what happens afterwards are the center of the book and overall focus of the book. Ian Baucom suggests that the Zong massacre is a result of financial capitalism, which Giovanni Arrghi “associates with transitional oscillations in the history of capitalism” (Optiz, 252). Baucom struggles with viewing the Zong “event” as more of a romantic historical event. The Zong insurance contract is used as allegory for capitalism. Baucom finds new ways to view the Zong massacre by not just limiting to the singular narrative but also focusing on “a densely theoretical work of cultural history” (Juengel, 148).

The article “A Chain of Murder in the Slave Trade: A Wider Context of the Zong Massacre” tries to look at the massacre in a different angle. Jeremy Krikler’s article focuses on bringing to light the concerns of commerce but also includes culture as well as the context of the time. The argument of the article is “this process habituated surgeons and captains… to the possibility of death (at the hands of African controllers) of the captives they deemed unfit for the African slave trade” (Krikler, 394). Krikler suggests that medical health became connected to the decision “of whether or not to accord commodity value to the captive” (Krikler, 394).

The Zong: A Massacre, the Law, and the End of Slavery by James Walvin argues that the Zong massacre was the beginning towards abolition of slavery. Walvin creates a narrative with “rich, contextual details that flesh out the business of slaving while explicating how Britons came to perceive the extermination of 132 Africans… as cruel and immoral” (Sears, 890). The Zong massacre opened up people’s eyes, showing the true cruel nature of the slave trade. Walvin brings up the idea that the success of a ship was based on “an experienced, savvy captain who can manage men and cargo and navigate business situations” (Sears, 891). However, the Zong captain mentioned before made terrible decisions one after the other that ultimately resulted in the death of innocents.

Many authors saw the Zong massacre in different ways whether it was more of a medical, culture, or just a humane approach. As informative as these parts are, it would be nice to see more of a human side. Most sources focus on the court case and nothing else. It is difficult to find sources for Zong and making it more publicized and showing how it changed how the world viewed its actions is very significant. The primary sources show that human side. It shows key players and what the culture was like before the Zong massacre happened. They never diminished the pain the enslaved people went through. In the end, the many ways the authors took allowed readers from today to see the Zong massacre as a single moment that represented a difficult time in human history. And through that event, the world noticed its crime and began to change, even if it was a slow process.

Works Cited

Juengel, Scott. The American Historical Review 114, no. 1 (2009): 148-49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30223651.

Krikler, Jeremy. “A Chain of Murder in the Slave Trade: A Wider Context of the Zong Massacre”. Colchester: University of Essex, 2012.

Opitz, Andrew. “Atlantic Modernity and the Wreckage of History.” Cultural Critique, no. 68 (2008): 251-54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25475467.

Sears, Christine E. 2013. The Zong: A Massacre, the Law, and the End of Slavery by James Walvin. Journal of World History. 24, no. 4: 890-892.

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