ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the materiality of both the slave ship and its multiple productions through images and discourse. The empirical work lies in a sociological examination of the relations of production in the slave ship and plantation and their materiality by working through primary materials about the ships and the material cultures produced by slavery including illustrations, archives and collections available through access to a variety of archives nationally and internationally. The reassertion of the centrality of the ship and shipmates to African-American identity also stresses the challenges of thinking about memory and identity from material artefacts that are either lost or limited. Neither the slave ship, except under exceptional circumstances such as the Fredensborg discovery or in illustrations like the Brookes drawing, nor the specific experience and memory of the passage are recoverable. The illustration of the slave ship Brookes was based on a plan.
