39 pages • 1 hour read
Stephanie E. SmallwoodSaltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
In Saltwater Slavery, Smallwood recreates the trade of enslaved people through the eyes of enslaved African people from the Gold Coast, using archival material from the Royal African Company. How does this approach differ from that of previous books written on the subject? How is it similar? What other sources could she draw from to create a fuller picture of the impact of the market of enslaved people on human lives?
How did contact with Europe change the Gold Coast? What do you think the politics and economy of the region would look like without the Atlantic trade market?
A major theme throughout Saltwater Slavery is the commodification of human beings. Can you think of another historical example of this? How did it come about, and for what purpose?
What role did maritime culture play in the Atlantic enslaved person market?
How did the Akan-speaking people see identity, and how did their view differ from the European concept of identity?
How did the enslaved African people view death aboard the ship? What did their culture of death entail before enslavement, and how did enslavement affect or change it?
What is the geography of the American market of enslaved people, and how did it evolve over the years?
What was the gendered division of labor in slavery, and how was it different from enslaved people’s former roles in Africa? How did gender influence slavery?
How did ‘Sibell’s narrative differ from Equiano’s? How were they similar? What narrative structure did each employ? What literary techniques did each use, and how did they affect the narrative?
What experience did enslaved African people have with social death? How did social death come about? How did it affect them? How did they recover?
