Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora

The introduction to Saltwater Slavery describes the arrival of ships bearing slaves during the spring and summer of 1721. Smallwood describes records kept by the merchants and colonial authorities to monitor international commerce and track the flow of commodities. Embedded in those records are “the elements of another narrative” (2): that of the individuals who have had their personhood stripped from them, as they have been brought through the Middle Passage to be sold as slaves. Specifically, Smallwood analyzes the records of England’s Royal African Company from 1675 to 1725 to extrapolate “the human story of the Atlantic slave trade” (5) and give agency to African slaves.

The term “saltwater” was a pejorative used by American-born slaves to describe those who were newly arrived from Africa. As Smallwood depicts through a quote from Edward Long, who observed native-born slaves referring to new African arrivals as “salt-water Negroes” (7) in 18th-century Jamaica, the term demonstrates an awareness by the American-born slaves of the problems of continued forced migration in immigrant communities that were attempting to put down roots. “Saltwater” was a continual reminder of the captivity, commodification, movement, and enslavement of African peoples.