The Diligent : a voyage through the worlds of the slave trade / Robert Harms.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harms, Robert, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slave trade--France--History--18th century.

Slave trade.

Slave trade--Africa, West--History--18th century.

Diligent (Ship).

History.

West Africa.

France.

Physical Description:

xxx, 466 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, [2002]

Summary:

In The Diligent, historian Robert Harms uses an entirely new approach to uncover the complex workings of the slave trade. Drawing upon the recently discovered private journal of First Lieutenant Robert Durand, Harms recreates the macabre journey of a French slave ship and interweaves it with the remarkable dramas of its slave route. The result is an astonishingly detailed look at the voyage of a single slave ship that also sheds new light on the collaborative nature of the slave trade and how it shaped morality, politics and economics on three continents.

The Diligent began her journey in Brittany in 1731, and Harms follows her along the African coast where her goods were traded for slaves, to Martinique where her captives were sold to work on sugar plantations. Robert Durand was an ambitious 26 year old meticulously studying the workings of a slave ship in the hope of one day becoming a captain. His journal gives a dispassionate account of day to day life on a ship navigating an extraordinary time in history, a time when momentous changes were transforming the Atlantic world. In Europe, the mercantilist economies of the seventeenth century were grudgingly giving way to the private enterprise merchant capitalism of the eighteenth century. In West Africa, the small trading states of the Guinea coast were being overrun by new militarized African empires financed by profits from the slave trade. And in the Caribbean, the introduction of new plantation crops was creating an unprecedented demand for slave labor.

The gruesome details of daily life aboard a slave ship defy contemporary imagination, but Durand records his fifteen-month journey with unflinching detail. Harms has supplemented Durand's journal with a wealth of archival research that brings to life a world in which slavery was a commerce carried out without qualms. He shows French merchants wrangling with their government for the right to traffic in slaves, African kings waging epic wars for control of European slave trading posts and representatives of European governments negotiating the complicated politics of the Guinea coast to ensure a steady supply of slave labor for their countries' colonies. On the slave ships themselves, captains chose between competing schools of thought on how best to avert slave rebellions, exercise and feed captives in irons and reduce mortality rates while packing in as much human cargo as their ships could hold. Pirates trolled the sea looking for slaves, and ship officers routinely cheated their outfitters to profit from the lucrative human trade. The Diligent is filled with rich and riveting stories that explain how the slave trade worked on all levels, from geopolitics to the rigging of ships.

By combining the detailed story of a single slaving expedition with an exploration of the significant personalities and events that were shaping the world in which she sailed, The Diligent provides a resonant perspective on a dark part of our history. Its unflinching examination of uncomfortable truths and careful attention to detail gives its readers an intimate understanding of a horrifying world.

Contents:

Part 1 Matters of Morality 1

Part 2 The Financiers 29

Part 3 Outfitting a Slaver 63

Part 4 Sailing South 87

Part 5 Cruising the African Coast 119

Part 6 Whydah 149

Part 7 Assou 197

Part 8 Jakin 225.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 417-451) and index.

ISBN:

0465028713

OCLC:

47767151