Capitalism and Slavery: An Interview with Greg Grandin [View all]

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8.1.14 ~ by Alex Gourevitch
Our notions of freedom emerge from and depend on slavery

In 1855, Herman Melville published “Benito Cereno,” a novella about a New England ship captain who suppresses a slave rebellion onboard another ship discovered off the coast of Lima, Peru. The story takes place in Melville’s favorite setting, a ship in open water, and deals with one of his main preoccupations: slavery. As it happens, it is also true. Thanks to Greg Grandin’s masterful Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World, we now know that history.

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Grandin’s book not only reconstructs these events, but in the process takes us from Duxbury, Massachusetts, to Bristol, England, to Senegambia, to Lima, to trace the complex threads of the slave trade that tied sealing captains like Amasa Delano to West African slave rebels like Babo and Mori to Latin American captains like Cerreño.

Along the way we learn how capitalism, slavery, and competing notions of freedom have been historically related; how doctors used slaves in early experiments with vaccination; how the slave trade was the chrysalis out of which came modern tort law and financial instruments; that Islam spread among slaves and became the basis for a number of slave revolts; that ships were floating tyrannies and seal hunters barbarians of a special sort; and much more ...

Much more here (and very much worth the long read): https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/capitalism-and-slavery-an-interview-with-greg-grandin/