Generations of Captivity

Chapter 1 recreates the transatlantic system that gave rise to New World slavery. As early as the 15th century, coastal towns along Africa’s west coast emerged alongside large, mercantile companies. In these “trading factories” (24), male European travelers forged relationships with African women and created a new generation of mixed-race individuals, a demographic that Berlin defines as “Atlantic creoles” (24). They occupied a precarious position in society, on the fringes of both European and African communities, but their multilingualism and knowledge of various cultures left them in a unique position to act as cultural and commercial intermediaries and brokers.

In the 17th century, forced migration brought Atlantic creoles to regions in the lands that would become the United States. They brokered their cross-cultural skills in the New World in similar capacities to their African pasts and forebears. This positionality meant marginal autonomy in societies with slaves. As various regions transitioned into slave societies (born of the “plantation revolutions” that established central industries dependent on slave labor, specifically), the conditions of bondage worsened and slaves exercised less bargaining power in their negotiations with slaveholders.

Berlin accounts for this

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