Identity, Agency and Humanity=NOT THE SAME THING

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was undoubtedly a horrifying, violent and dehumanizing system of oppression that is the backbone of our country. Even with consensus around that fact, there is still room for misconceptions that continue to lead to racial stereotypes and subjugation. Even seemingly “progressive” ways of thinking about slavery can perpetuate harmful ideas about people of color that sustain racism. I’ve been thinking a lot about common misconceptions regarding the trade, particularly those surrounding identity. Three main issues I’ve located and want to analyze are the romanticization/victimization of the entirety of Africa, harmful generalizations about how slaves’ identities were formed and the difference between agency and humanity.

One common misconception is that everyone who lived in Africa (people tend to forget that it’s a HUGE continent) lived and existed in perfect harmony prior to the slave trade. This idea is idealistic, and ultimately dehumanizing—it assumes that Africans all held the same beliefs, and were not complex people with complex ideas. Although Africans were the victims of New World slavery, and it is important to recognize that, it does more harm than good to forget about/assume the political, social and economic realities that existed in Africa during the slave trade. Additionally, it’s important to note that skin color did not tie people together necessarily prior to the trade. While the intent behind these generalizations are typically good, they ultimately stereotype and isolate Africans more. If the narrative depicts Africans as one-dimensional, harmful ideas about race continue to be perpetrated.

Similarly, one interesting and important idea raised in the reading is that shared language and traits does not necessarily equal community. The view, although typically intended to humanize slaves by demonstrating how they connected and built community, works to do just the opposite—it dehumanizes Africans by failing to recognize that they had opinions, preferences and personalities. As Smallwood writes, slavery, “brought together in anomalous intimacy. A product of violence, the slave cargo constituted the antithesis of community” (Smallwood, 101). She goes on to say, “If Africans from a particular region can be said to have common culture (usually defined so broadly that it is based solely on historically related languages), they are presumed to represent a coherent community of actors entering the Atlantic world together, as if people who could talk to each other can be assumed to have wanted to talk to each other” (Smallwood, 119). She then notes that, “This premise rests, however, on the erroneous assumption that shared cultural traits automatically constitute community” (Smallwood, 119). When thinking about slavery and race, it is crucial to remember that there is/was a wide array of cultural identities in Africa. Additionally, this goes back to the other common misconception about identity that Africans arrived in the New World as ‘clean slates.’ Africans had specialized talents and abilities that they brought with them through the Middle Passage. The piece of Smallwood’s writing that resonated with me the most is her definition of identity. She writes that identity, “involved complex choices rather than a narrowly defined and prescribed script, and only the privileged were in a position to benefit from choosing to focus on the historical linkages of real genealogy as opposed to the situational linkages of fictive kinship” (Smallwood, 114). She goes on to say that, identity, “must be understood as a history of competitive claims to resources and power waged by groups whose identities were rooted not in shared language or ‘culture’ per se, but in the interplay of local, historically contingent markers of affiliation” (Smallwood, 115). It is important to think of identity as complex, formed by many complex factors and experiences.

Finally, the ideas in the reading surrounding identity raised some questions: What is the difference between agency and humanity? By only characterizing and understanding slaves by their agency, or resistance to slavery, are we defining Africans by their enslavement? Scholarly slavery discourse often involves resistance—how slaves rebelled, and refused oppression. It is important to consider the ways slaved displayed their humanity—individuals’ bonds with others, and things that mattered in their lives-- rather than just ways they resisted the trade. In only focusing on rebellion/maintaining agency, we (perhaps unintentionally) define people by the slave trade.   

What are some misconceptions y’all were taught about slavery? What are ways to combat these?

Word Count: 715

Pledged: Annie Jaffee

The Free Library. S.v. Stephanie E. Smallwood. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora