Chapter 7-8

It is easy to paint history the color you want it to be when you hold the paintbrush. While i agree with most of the facts and stories presented in these chapters the comments about Washington are hardest to sit with me. For me these chapters provided the opportunities to realize that everyone is good in the eyes of someone and everyone is the devil to someone else. While Washington did wonderful things for the country it is amazing to think that he was so dependent upon slavery. I think it is best to take these facts and constantly remind yourself of what was going on during the time. In taking a step back into history you are able to almost put yourself in the shoes of these now greater men.
Time does not change everything. Money still drives power and someone with money is forever hesitant to give it up for fear of losing everything.

Chapters 5-6

Interesting. the author really takes the reader for a ride in these two chapters i feel. More so than in the earlier sections of the book. The end of both chapters throw in a lot of the shock factor that the first part of each respective chapter had hinted towards. Page 81 brought the disconnection between the human element and the business world to a head. In the last part of the page the author comments on how despite the fact that there were 132 humans thrown overboard the court case had little to do with the matter. It was instead more important that the insurance company did not have to pay what would be millions of dollars in todays money for the incident that was passed off as losses from the sea. This monetary value on human life is a concept that is continuously brought up throughout the text.

The author on page 93 adds in a comment by Ramsay that successfully sums up the slaves spirit in a sentence. "Had nature intended negroes for slavery...they would have been born without any sentiment for liberty." It is interesting to throw that in. You can see the change in the tone of the book at that moment.

Chapters 3/4

Society will never change. They say that it takes a change in government to take a few years society is truly a few decades as they never get over what has happened to realize what is happening. Page 51 proves this to me. The black girl, Dido, illegitimate to the family, was an outcast in her own home. It is astonishing, at the point of this passage the author has commented on the fact that slavery has been ruled as illegal however the confusion of the dinner guests as to why a black girl could come sit down with the others and be able to walk with the women into the gardens does not sit well with anyone. It is never questioned, nothing further from mind, that perhaps the child is perhaps their own.
A continuation of the ideas mentioned in the previous chapter really surface once again on page 51 where the blacks and animals are put on the same social level. Padlocks, outrageous. these few individuals who were openly against slavery noted at the end of chapter 3 go to stand for the idea that it only takes a few for a lot of change to occur.

The dichotomy between England and Jamaica pointed out in the early stages of chapter 4 paints the deteriorating picture of Britian with the words more than it does the lavishness of Jamaica. Such accounts uncomprehensible to the English jsut shows how economically depressed their society was.

The Caribbean slave operation comes across as totally different from that of the British as the Caribbeans were constantly working to keep the slave population under control. To me this is a reality that the slaves had the numbers however they lacked communication means as well as the organization to have an uprising without help. It is interesting to see where others come to the needs of the slaves.

Chapters 1-2 Annotations

1. One of the most striking features of the first chapter i find is on page 15 where the author talks about carrying this live cargo was so exciting. The way the author puts the text gives the reader the context that nothing could be better than shipping around these animals. It is striking the difference in perception of ones self in relationship to those around them.


2 Animals get treated with more respect. It is strange to think that in many instances animals have a better life than that of a slave crossing the ocean. A slave, in a ship's hold, awaiting punishment, death, disease is not really a slave, a person or an animal, merely the individual whom throughout the text is referred to as nothing more than a number stays a number. You would think that they were cattle. It is interesting how those around the narrator have names and are given life however these slaves only come to life when in fact they die. They are then disposed of.

3 The last line of the first chapter is definitely a cliffhanger to keep the reader interested. John Newton speaks of god frequently but it is true, never did God enlighten him that his ways were wrong according to John. It is an interesting twist to the religious being.