Materializing the Middle Passage: A Historical Archaeology of British Slave Shipping, 1680-1807

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Jane Webster (Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, Newcastle University)

Materializing the Middle Passage

A Historical Archaeology of British Slave Shipping, 1680-1807

Jane Webster (Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology, Newcastle University)

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English

Oxford University Press
07 December 2023

African history; Maritime history; Slavery & abolition of slavery; Archaeology

An estimated 2.7 million Africans made an enforced crossing of the Atlantic on British slave ships between c.1680 and 1807--a journey that has become known as the 'Middle Passage'. This book focuses on the slave ship itself. The slave ship is the largest artefact of the Transatlantic slave trade, but because so few examples of wrecked slaving vessels have been located at sea, it is rarely studied by archaeologists. Materializing the Middle Passage: A Historical Archaeology of British Slave Shipping,1680-1807 argues that there are other ways for archaeologists to materialize the slave ship. It employs a pioneering interdisciplinary methodology combining primary documentary sources, maritime and terrestrial archaeology, paintings, maritime and ethnographic museum collections, and many other sources to 'rebuild' British slaving vessels and to identify changes to them over time. The book then goes on to consider the reception of the slave ship and its trade goods in coastal West Africa, and details the range, and uses, of the many African resources (including ivory, gold, and live animals) entering Britain on returning slave ships. The third section of the book focuses on the Middle Passage experiences of both captives and crews and argues that greater attention needs to be paid to the coping mechanisms through which Africans survived, yet also challenged, their captive passage. Finally, Jane Webster asks why the African Middle Passage experience remains so elusive, even after decades of scholarship dedicated to uncovering it. She considers when, how, and why the crossing was remembered by 'saltwater' captives in the Caribbean and North America. The marriage of words and things attempted in this richly illustrated book is underpinned throughout by a theoretical perspective combining creolization and postcolonial theory, and by a central focus on the materiality of the slave ship and its regimes.

By: Jane Webster (Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology Newcastle University)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 253mm, Width: 183mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 1.236kg
ISBN: 9780199214594
ISBN 10: 019921459X
Pages: 544
Publication Date: 07 December 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jane Webster is Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at Newcastle University. She received her PhD from Edinburgh University in 1991 and from 1992-1999 taught at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, before moving to Newcastle in 2004. In between University posts, Jane was awarded a Caird Senior Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum in 2001; Materializing the Middle Passage originated there.