Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic

by Jennifer L. Morgan

In Reckoning with Slavery Jennifer L. Morgan draws on the lived experiences of enslaved African women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to reveal the contours of early modern notions of trade, race, and commodification in the Black Atlantic. From capture to transport to sale to childbirth, these women were demographically counted as commodities during the Middle Passage, vulnerable to rape, separated from their kin at slave markets, and subject to laws that enslaved their children upon birth. In this way, they were central to the binding of reproductive labor with kinship, racial hierarchy, and the economics of slavery. Throughout this groundbreaking study, Morgan demonstrates that the development of Western notions of value and race occurred simultaneously. In so doing, she illustrates how racial capitalism denied the enslaved their kinship and affective ties while simultaneously relying on kinship to reproduce and enforce slavery through enslaved female bodies.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, Politics, Economics, American History, Labor

312 pages, Hardcover

First published June 11, 2021

Reviews

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Jennifer Morgan writes a THICK book. She does a lot of name/historiography dropping in the actual text, not just the introduction. She is concerned with the processes that divided people and economies along the distinct aces of value and commodity.

In the narrative, Morgan articulates the relationships and ideologies of the 16 and 17century that congealed in the 18th and 19th century into common sense understands that are still with us. She is concerned with the triangle of economic logic, black radical tradition and kinship as the basis of both racial formation and Blackness as enslavebility.

Morgan argues that kinship could be claimed only in freedom and Blackness signified freedom's opposite. This argument brings kinship and commodification to 17th century ideologies; it asks how the logics of racial slavery made sense to Europeans and what Africans knew about the terms of their captivity. The inability to convey kinship is the main issue here.

Morgan states there is a need to write histories that acknowledge the silences in the records as evidence of an irrecoverable w/hole. She seeks to denaturalize the system of thought that enslaved women's works were only just emerging in the early modern Black Atlantic. Kinship, motherhood, population and commodification were conceptually intertwined for slave owners and for those who were enslaved.

I enjoyed the many many themes, theories, and methods in this book but it was a lot. The first half of the book could be its own piece compared to the second half of the book.

[Alexander B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This style of writing… Jesus. It’s called “I am very smart”. Burn the books please. All the substantive and evidence-supported content of the book can be written down on one page, and the rest is just insanely dragged out trivial critique of obvious historiographic trends (yes, racism and sexism permeate the historiography of slavery… who would thunk?!) coated in the most insufferable academic language. The problem isn’t that the subject matter is obvious or trivial to me, it’s that the only material “evidence” in this book are a few short anecdotes and a few pictures. The rest is just speculative theorizing that looks like this:

“Enslaved women had to be ‘theorists of freedom’ and gained a critical perspective through the ways the market was made manifest through their bodies”

gtfo 🚮

This is unreadable to any materialist and it’s so funny that conservatives consider critical theory somehow related to Marxism. This type of “research” exemplifies what made the Sokal and Lindsay hoaxes so effective and it’s frustrating to see people keep producing this GPTchat-looking ass writing.

[Julie Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, engrossing, and powerful exploration of Atlantic slavery and its connection to capitalism. Just unbelievably insightful and poetic. Highly recommended for anyone.

[Zack Dow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following Hartman’s “fabulative” methodology for bringing enslaved women out of the archive, Morgan’s evidence is tenuous. This is an important part of her argument, though, since the erasure or “rationalization” of enslaved women was key to their objectification and, by extension, racial capitalism. At times this makes her claims feel unsubstantiated, especially when her work is purely theoretical, but her perspective is fresh and corrective, and her argument is persuasive. It was not fun to read - Morgan seems to have taken Beauvoir and Butler as her models for prose.

[Ginger Mae Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book, while Morgan is a really dense writer, I think anything she writes is worth the extra effort to take in on all levels.
I read this for a graduate course, so I've included a shorter version of my overall assessment of the book. I’m not sure that there’s a clear balance between the consumptive nature of the European economy, the African economy from which the enslaved peoples came, and the African captives’ navigation between the two. There’s little explanation for the systems of value and trade that predated the European system in Africa; and while that could be due to a lack of precise scholarship, Morgan does not entirely acknowledge the fact in that case. All of these, however, point towards a conclusion about the more technical aspects of the book as a whole, which is that she tends to write towards an audience that is intimately familiar with the history and surrounding scholarship of the early Black Atlantic. This point is further highlighted by the lack of geographic specificity. While all of the areas she includes occupy the same general space of West Africa, there is enough geographical distance between them that warrants either some explanation or acknowledgement of the confirmed, potential, or possibly lack-of scholarly of the diverse and/or cohesive dynamics of culture, trade, and value that existed across the more-than 2,000 mile span of the geographical area at play.
This all being said, though, it is truly admirable just how much content this book spans. Jennifer Morgan is certainly an author who I always encourage people to read, and one of the best in modern historical scholarship.

[Ian Gere · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do think this a book that should be read over a long period of time, but because I needed to read it quickly for a course I think that does impact my review. I think Morgan is successful in intervening in the broader historiography that has held the economic histories of slavery on a pedestal. Chapter 2 started off strong, but I felt the latter half of it could’ve been condensed. This book is definitely written for a more academic audience who is aware of the historiography that Morgan seeks to challenge. I particularly enjoyed Morgan’s argument in Chapter 6 about the role of enslaved women in slave revolts. A good book, will probably need to re-read.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant and innovative use of archives to give light to the stories of women in the slave trade. And a crucial work in continuing to show the linked emergence of slavery and capitalism. A great read!

[Edie Heuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was assigned reading in a graduate school seminar on Slavery and Capitalism. It’s an engrossing, very informative book. The prose is a bit dense at times in this well researched book. The chapter on the Middle Passage was very compelling. I learned a lot about the origins of slavery

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Challenging. Important.

[Fresno Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

commodization of humans is bad

[Michael Mareno · Rating 4 out of 5]

morgan writes lyrical prose. she does so much with so few primary sources.

genuinely haunting - this will sit with me for quite some time.

[Matthew Rohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book very much for historians, and specifically for historians who have a strong interest in early Atlantic slavery. The ideas are dense and can be very useful to historians working outside of that field, but I think likely requires at least a moderate degree of familiarity with the area in order to get the most out of it, and to make the somewhat dense writing as transparent as possible

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would say that this book is unnecessarily difficult to read. This is a problem with many academic books. Knowing the material and writing well do not always go together.

The book is worth reading. There are a lot of insights into the slave trade of African women. This is something that is not talked about much.

Her methodology is interesting. I think that it is an appropriate one, and she did not invent it. I do think that she overdoes the reading between the numbers a bit.