Final Passages - (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American Histo) by Gregory E O'Malley (Paperback)

About the Book

Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807

Book Synopsis

This work explores a neglected aspect of the forced migration of African laborers to the Americas. Hundreds of thousands of captive Africans continued their journeys after the Middle Passage across the Atlantic. Colonial merchants purchased and then transshipped many of these captives to other colonies for resale. Not only did this trade increase death rates and the social and cultural isolation of Africans; it also fed the expansion of British slavery and trafficking of captives to foreign empires, contributing to Britain's preeminence in the transatlantic slave trade by the mid-eighteenth century. The pursuit of profits from exploiting enslaved people as commodities facilitated exchanges across borders, loosening mercantile restrictions and expanding capitalist networks.

Drawing on a database of over seven thousand intercolonial slave trading voyages compiled from port records, newspapers, and merchant accounts, O'Malley identifies and quantifies the major routes of this intercolonial slave trade. He argues that such voyages were a crucial component in the development of slavery in the Caribbean and North America and that trade in the unfree led to experimentation with free trade between empires.

Review Quotes

"A new and arresting perspective on the British slave trade in the early modern world."--CHOICE

"A refreshing and authoritative history of the English slave trade."--Journal of American History

"Fills a major gap in the literature. . . . The standard for many years to come."--Journal of Southern History

"Groundbreaking . . . enhances the scope and complexity of our understanding of the slave trade."--New England Quarterly

"Important scholarly insights to our collective understanding of the Atlantic slave trade, and, more broadly, Atlantic slavery, continue to arrive with increasing frequency every year. Few, however, are as likely to provide such major quantitative contributions and qualitative insights as Greg O'Malley's exemplary first book, Final Passages."--Journal of British Studies

"In this rigorously-argued and well-sourced volume, Gregory E. O'Malley establishes himself as being on the cutting edge of scholarship with regards to the complexities of the transatlantic slave trade."--American Historical Review

"It is rare for a first book to make such an important contribution to a field of such depth and maturity as the study of the slave trade. Scholars will be working through the broader implications here for some time to come."--Journal of Early American History

"Sure to be required reading for students and scholars of the slave trade. . . . The many strengths of the book are on full display as the text guides the reader through the complex machinations that drew slaves to busy colonial ports like Charleston and backwater colonies like North Carolina."--Canadian Journal of History

"Will be the definitive account of intercolonial slave trading for many years to come, and it is a major . . . contribution to our understanding of the politics and economics of slavery."--English Historical Review

"With the publication of Final Passages, the historiography of the intra-American slave trade has made a giant leap forward."--William and Mary Quarterly