Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses slavery and abuse. This guide uses the word “slave” in quotation only.

Commodification is the transformation of something into goods to be used for trade or purchase. Smallwood suggests that enslavers and traders inflicted this process upon the people who they enslaved and discusses The Dehumanizing Effects of Commodification; that is, enslavers and traders mistreated people and ignored their needs so that they could view them as objects to buy and sell.

A diaspora is a group of people with a common homeland who are dispersed across the globe. Saltwater Slavery describes the process of enslavement by which an African diaspora was established in the Americas. Smallwood explores the social challenges that came with Establishing Social Structure and Community Amid Forced Displacement since enslaved people from Africa had to establish a new social order that was different from what they had known.

The Gold Coast references the area that is now present-day Ghana. It was previously divided into several states controlled by different indigenous ethnic groups. The first European explorers to reach it were the Portuguese, who claimed it for their gold mines. The Dutch and the British also had significant activity there.