I can confidently say that I was thoroughly shocked after reading Saidiya Hartman’s ‘The Dead Book.’ The cruelty and brutality that the captain had towards the slaves, in particular the girl the story is based on, is unfathomable to myself. How a human being can torture another human being without any feelings of regret or guilt is crazy. I would like to think that humans are genuinely ‘good-hearted’ but stories like this one seem to suggest otherwise. The actions of this captain, as well as other slave owners, certainly coincides with Thomas Hobbes’ ideas that humans are naturally evil, greedy and selfish. He also thought that life was short and brutal. For these slaves, this was very true.
This story seems to support the idea of ‘every man or woman for themselves.’ Nobody stopped the captain from his torturing ways because others were just happy it wasn’t them at that moment. ‘It was best to stay away from what didn’t concern you’ (p.140). There was fear too that any one to disobey would quickly have all eyes on them for the next beating.
Another line that was quick to catch my attention was ‘mostly the captain was a fair man.’ The captain’s actions seem to be the opposite of fair. Even if he felt he had a reason to punish the girl for being disobedient to his commands, there was no reason to go to the extremes that he did such as hanging her from each limb, and dropping her on the deck over and over again.
Dylan Cutler
The line "mostly the captain was a fair man" really stuck out to me as well. It makes me think that one's concept of "fair" has a lot to do with the culture of the times and the events one has grown accustomed to. To the third mate speaking here, perhaps since such cruel beatings were so common, he has grown to view cruelties such as torture as normal and fair. It goes along with the idea of dehumanizing the Africans being brought over so that many came to believe instances such as this one to be normal. Some may have even believed she deserved it. The surgeon talks about how he believed the girl had "the pox" (gonorrhea). Perhaps some believed she deserved the beating simply for having this disease. It is interesting to me because it tore my heart when the surgeon described how the crew could "have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure (141)." He goes on to say, "the prey was divided, upon the spot, and only reserved until opportunity offered. Where resistance or refusal would be utterly in vain (141)." So the girl was looked down on for having a disease she could have procured from being taken advantage of.
ReplyDeleteIt is all extremely contradicting and hear-wrenching. Yet the beatings, the raping, everything worked to dehumanize the Africans. Because if the slave traders could convince others and the actual slaves that black people were not human, then perhaps they themselves could find justification for the horrible deeds they committed.