Atlantic Trade Research Articles

A possible trachoma cluster unveiling the mist of Le Rôdeur: probes in favor and against an alternative cause of the crew blindness

ABSTRACT In 1819, a puzzling outbreak of infectious blindness afflicted nearly all crew members and African slaves aboard the French vessel Le Rôdeur during the transatlantic slave trade. This paper investigates the etiology of this unique event, comparing different pathogens that cause blindness: Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Onchocerca volvulus; endemic in the African Continent. Reviewing naval medicine since the seventeenth century and eye infection knowledge in 1800, alongside historical records, we explore the singular case of Le Rôdeur’s outbreak. While some clinical features favor trachoma, rapid onset, and progression align with gonococcal conjunctivitis. We suggest both as possible causes, underscoring the intricate intersection of infectious diseases and transatlantic trade.

Captivity’s Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade by Kathleen S. Murphy (review)

Captivity’s Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade by Kathleen S. Murphy (review)

Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by Nicholas Radburn (review)

Traders in Men: Merchants and the Transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by Nicholas Radburn (review)

Book Review: Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank, Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery.

The authors of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery were raised, educated, and employed in the North and once thought they knew something about the history of slavery in the United States. Specifically, they were convinced that Northerners were largely sympathetic to the plight of enslaved Africans and that systematic racial exploitation and mistreatment were confined to the less enlightened South. However, when the newspaper they worked for, The Hartford Courant, ran a story about a local company apologizing for having provided slaveholders with insurance on their captives, they began to question their views. As a result, these journalists embarked on an investigation of Northern involvement in slavery and Complicity is an account of their findings: an account that has several merits in my opinion.

Valongo Wharf and Gadsden’s Wharf: A Comparative Approach to Two Sites of Memory of Atlantic Slavery (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Charleston, South Carolina)

The article presents a comparative analysis between Valongo Wharf in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina, as sites of memory of the Atlantic slave trade. It examines how these sites, both integrated into the UNESCO “Routes of Enslaved Peoples” project, confront the legacy of slavery and its contemporary implications. The study investigates the prevailing narratives in these spaces, the privileged and silenced memories, and the connection established between past atrocities and present racism. From a comparative historical perspective, the article discusses the social construction of these sites of memory, considering the influences of different social actors, such as Black movements, scholars, and public authorities. The analysis reveals how Valongo and Gadsden’s Wharves have become spaces of dispute for recognition and ambiguities over the memory of slavery and its legacies.

“Here Lies the Possibility of Bodies Turning Elemental”:

This paper explores the (non)representational aesthetics and politics of Serpent Rain, a 2016 Black feminist film inspired by the recovery of a Danish-Norwegian slave ship. Despite ample historical evidence, Scandinavia’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade remains an underdiscussed topic; when the history is broached at all, it tends to be relegated to a distant ‘dark chapter’ already overcome. I argue that Serpent Rain rejects this binary of erasure vs. contained representation in its treatment of slavery, enacting instead another type of (non)representation that moves beyond “the limits of most available narratives to explain the position of the enslaved” (Hartman and Wilderson 2023, 184). Taking its meandering and associative form from Serpent Rain’s experimental aesthetics, this article draws on Black feminist theory—particularly Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake—to argue that the film unsettles visual and ontological certainty to dramatize the repetitive structure of racial capitalism and its ongoing reiterative violence, from the sunken slave ship to the ongoing extraction of oil on indigenous land. Ultimately, the film makes us question not only the hegemonic mediation of the enslaved, but also the orthography of the (white) Human and the seeming serenity of Norwegian oceanic landscapes.

Echoes from Benin: The unrecognized profits of the German heavy metal industry from the transatlantic slave trade – a provocation

ABSTRACT The study “German brass for Benin Bronzes,” published in 2023 with my colleagues, revealed how German metals played a significant role in the production of the Benin Bronzes, one of the most controversial cultural heritage issues of recent years. 1 However, the extensive discussion surrounding the restitution of the stolen artworks completely ignored the historical data that explained the presence of German metals in the Bronzes. In view of the sensitivity and topicality of the debates on de-colonialization and German profits from the transatlantic slave trade, this is unacceptably problematical. This provocation challenges this lacuna in reference to the Benin Bronzes as a symptom of a repressed narrative about the German metal export economy to Africa and aims to provoke further studies of the larger contextualization of the German entanglement in the global metal trade well into the twentieth century. 2

The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism

The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism

A subjective response to ‘transitional phenomena’ and case study of chinoiseries in “Afro-Cuban” religions

ABSTRACT This article reflects on the approaches that contributors to this special issue have adopted in their study of religious (and non-religious) things. Most Winnicott-inspired studies of religion thus far have looked at embodied and communicative experience from the perspective of the linguistic turn, with its emphases on symbolism, meaning, narrative, and the interplay of psychic forces. This article observes that the contributors’ interventions bear the stamp of the sensory, affective, and ontological turns, offering insights that build on their layered interrogations of modernity, coloniality, secularism, indigeneity, conversion, and migration. The article concludes with a sketch of Chinese-coded objects (chinoiseries) in ‘Afro-Cuban’ religions that puts their straddling of racial and ontological categories forward as an example of transitional phenomena. This exploration is intended to press beyond the critique of fetishism as an analytic legacy of the transatlantic slave trade while grappling with the synaesthetic nature of engagement with religious things.

Subcontinental Genetic Diversity in the All of Us Research Program: Implications for Biomedical Research.

The All of Us Research Program ( All of Us ) seeks to accelerate biomedical research and address the underrepresentation of minorities by recruiting over one million ethnically diverse participants across the United States. A key question is how self-identification with discrete, predefined race and ethnicity categories compares to genetic diversity at continental and subcontinental levels. To contextualize the genetic diversity in All of Us , we analyzed ∼2 million common variants from 230,016 unrelated whole genomes using classical population genetics methods, alongside reference panels such as the 1000 Genomes Project, Human Genome Diversity Project, and Simons Genome Diversity Project. Our analysis reveals that participants within self-identified race and ethnicity groups exhibit a gradient of genetic diversity rather than discrete clusters. The distributions of continental and subcontinental ancestries show considerable variation within race and ethnicity, both nationally and across states, reflecting the historical impacts of U.S. colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and recent migrations. All of Us samples filled most gaps along the top five principal components of genetic diversity in current global reference panels. Notably, "Hispanic or Latino" participants spanned much of the three-way (African, Native American, and European) admixture spectrum. Ancestry was significantly associated with body mass index (BMI) and height, even after adjusting for socio-environmental covariates. In particular, West-Central and East African ancestries showed opposite associations with BMI. This study emphasizes the importance of assessing subcontinental ancestries, as the continental approach is insufficient to control for confounding in genetic association studies.

The Implications of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on the Education of Enslaved People in America

This paper discusses how Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had an extraordinary impact on the development of education for enslaved people, particularly African Americans, after the Civil War. It also highlights how the long-standing practice of slavery in America, which had persisted for centuries, was boldly challenged by Lincoln's declaration to abolish it. Lincoln issued a policy to eliminate slavery, which significantly influenced their level of education in the years that followed. This paper used a qualitative method with a historical approach to explain the social aspects of life in the past. The research findings indicate that during the era of slavery, enslaved individuals were heavily bound by various rules imposed by plantation owners. These rules had to be obeyed without any means of self-defense. Enslaved people were considered property of landowners, who could sell them and treat them as they pleased. Abraham Lincoln sought to abolish this practice by issuing a presidential decree in the form of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. This effort culminated in the U.S. Congress adding the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865. The policy to abolish slavery gave rise to human rights protections for enslaved individuals, especially those working in the southern states.

Captivity's Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade by Kathleen S. Murphy (review)

Captivity's Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade by Kathleen S. Murphy (review)

Cuba as a Center of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Carricaburu Family Network, 1791–1820

Cuba as a Center of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Carricaburu Family Network, 1791–1820

Power, Status, and the Archaeology of the Atlantic Experience in Peki, Ghana

ABSTRACT This paper explores the history and archaeology of trans-Atlantic trade in Peki, a frontier Ewe community in present-day southeastern Ghana. From the 17th–19th century a.d., Peki and other inland Ewe communities became entangled in the global commercial activities and local power dynamics of the trans-Atlantic trade in the Gold Coast in ways that complicate the strict dichotomy between Indigenous victims and perpetrators of the trade in enslaved people. By examining the materiality of grave goods uncovered from an elite burial context—glass beads, cowries, and copper ornaments—the paper provides nuanced insights into how Atlantic prestige goods may have been appropriated and used to negotiate political, economic, military, and religious power and status in Peki. It posits Peki’s landscape of slavery as an important case study through which we can better understand the experiences of Indigenous interior communities that survived in the interstices of more powerful expansionist states in West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of a community-engaged approach to the archaeology of slavery in the African interior.

Dancing Back to the Motherland

Colonialism resulted in millions of Africans being forcibly transported from the coasts of Africa to the Caribbean. A legacy of this trans-Atlantic slave trade has been an indissoluble connection between Africa, the ancestral motherland, and her diaspora offspring. This article explores the author’s pedagogical experiences of re-crossing the Atlantic Ocean and teaching the Caribbean Bélé to second year students at the University of Cape Town. What happens when Caribbean dances return to Africa? In this paper I argue that Caribbean dances in higher education dance curriculum in South Africa carry a decolonial potential to evoke joy, wholeness, and healing.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: An Unrepaired Crime against Humanity

Fourteenth-century Europe was marked by the Renaissance, the large movement of European awakening that started in Italy and encompassed scientific, political, economic, social, and cultural fields. One of the results of this movement was an unprecedented wave of explorations of the lands outside Europe, pioneered by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. These explorations allowed Portugal to create trading posts and build castles along the West African coasts and establish sugarcane plantations on the Atlantic islands which relied on African slave labor. However, the discovery of the Americas in 1492 dramatically increased the demand for African slaves. This paper traces back the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the atrocities committed against African slaves, and it attempts to highlight the wrongs done to them for centuries in the name of economic progress dictated by the capitalist system. Résumé L’Europe du XIVe siècle a été marquée par la Renaissance qui a englobé les domaines scientifique, politique, économique, social et culturel. L’un des résultats de ce mouvement fut une vague d’explorations sans précédent des terres hors d’Europe au XVe siècle, initiée par les Portugais. Ces explorations ont permis au Portugal de créer des postes commerciaux et de construire des forts le long des côtes de l'Afrique de l'Ouest et d'établir des plantations de canne à sucre sur les îles de l'Atlantique qui reposaient sur la main-d'œuvre des esclaves africains. Cependant, la découverte des Amériques en 1492 a considérablement accru la demande d’esclaves africains.Cet article retrace l'histoire de la traite transatlantique des esclaves et des atrocités commises contre les esclaves africains, et tente de mettre en lumière les torts qui leur ont été causés pendant des siècles au nom du progrès économique dicté par le système capitaliste.

Some comments over the Yorùbá origins of Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian Religions

Candomblé is one of many Afro-Brazilian religions that boast of African origins consequent, especially of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In recent times, efforts toward vitiating the transnational link between Africa and Brazil as unstable, historically, and socially have become replete among some scholars – the claim being that merely finding the echoes of Africa in the Americas are not sufficient grounds to ferment an essentialist perception of these Afro-Brazilian religions as purely African. Whereas this research agrees with such scholars that an essentialist understanding of Afro-Brazilian religions is unfair, it contests their outlook that portraying Yorùbá as the origin of Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian religions may be misleading. Hence, for its aim, this research makes etymological and philological assessments of some important concepts central to Yorùbá identity and rituals. Whilst establishing that an essentialist reading will not do, the study explores discourses on sexuality and matriarchal cults, divination, and sainthood.

Strategic Visions, Volume 24, Number 1 (Fall 2024)

This issue of Strategic Visions, Volume 24, Issue 1 (Fall 2024), features the usual "News from the Director" and "Note from the Davis Fellow" sections, in which we reflect on this past semester’s colloquium series. Additionally, we are excited to share interviews with Aaron Gell, a journalist for The New Republic, who discusses campus protests related to Gaza, and Dr. Nikolas Gvosdev, Professor of Naval Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, who provides insights into foreign policy in President-Elect Trump’s second term. Two of our graduate students, Andrew Santora and Jake Wolff, have contributed pieces detailing their archival research, which has been supported in part by CENFAD. Additionally, PhD candidate Audrey Rankin offers a review of Kathleen Murphy's Captivity's Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

Paleoparasitological analysis of a 15th-16th c. CE latrine from the merchant quarter of Bruges, Belgium: Evidence for local and exotic parasite infections.

Paleoparasitological studies have made important contributions to our understanding of the past epidemiology of parasites, infection in past populations and lifestyle in the past. In some cases, these ancient parasites can also provide evidence for long distance travel or migration of people in the past. Three sediment samples from a 15th–16th c. CE latrine from the Spanish nation house in Bruges, Belgium were analysed for preserved helminth eggs using microscopy. Bruges was a major trading centre in medieval Europe, thus it was home to a large merchant population with extensive trading networks. Paleoparasitological analysis revealed a preserved parasite egg from Schistosoma mansoni, which causes intestinal schistosomiasis. Roundworm, whipworm, liver fluke and Taenia tapeworm eggs were also found in the latrine which is consistent with parasites previously found in the local population in the medieval period. These new data provide direct evidence for the movement of S. mansoni outside of its endemic area. Today the vast majority of S. mansoni infections occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, with additional endemic areas in the Arabian peninsula and South America. The introduction of S. mansoni into South America is proposed to have occurred relatively recently in human history, as the result of forced movement of people from Africa to the Americas with the Atlantic slave trade. Thus, this infection may have occurred in a merchant who acquired the parasite during trade voyages to Africa or in an individual living in Africa who migrated to Bruges.

Flotation Devices Re-stor(y)ing Haunted South African Ocean Herstories through Mending as a Decolonial Love Language

ABSTRACT This paper engages in a dialogical meaning ∞ making between South African Story-tailor Cleo Droomer and sociologist/artist Dylan McGarry, exploring Droomer's creation of “floatation devices” or “Life(Jackets).” Using a “pedagogy of echolocation” that surfaces the living archival memory of Droomer's artworks, the authors navigate the haunted entanglements implicit with our relationships with the ocean. Their tactile research, rooted in personal and intergenerational trauma, utilizes heirloom fabrics to craft social wearable sculptures. These pieces facilitate a dialogue with his ancestors, from the apartheid-induced removal of his grandparents from the ocean to his enslaved forebears. Droomer's work highlights the ocean's role in the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades, underscoring the need for recognizing it as a site of remembrance and intangible heritage. This contrasts with the acknowledgment of other sites of human suffering, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the ocean's historical significance. KEY POLICY HIGHLIGHTS Our oceans are haunted in South Africa by complex exclusions, violence’s and sunken histories, and require re-configured “flotation devices” to surface them. The rush for Oil and Gas and other extractive rapid Blue Economy activities are not just violently excluding marginalized communities, they erase the necropolitics of our ocean. Art-making as a form of thinking, theorizing and re-membering/re-configuring our histories can offer ways to surface and work with our ocean heritage with the context of Blue Economy expansion. Global Bodies like the International Sea-bed Authority (ISA) and UNESCO overlook the seabed and ocean as sites of human suffering and cultural history, and should consider Droomer’s sculptural policy briefs, i.e. (Life)Jackets. Social Sculpture and “story-tailoring” offers ongoing living archives or “an-archives” to support meaningful approaches to practicing Ubuntu and re-figuring our relational ontologies with the ocean. Mending both as a practice, and as a figurative theory is an embodied phronesis for decolonial justice, or “love-language.”