Thomas is married to Vanessa Jebb who comes from a diplomatic family. Jebb’s father was the first acting Secretary General of the United Nations. Thomas Hugh was a professor of History at University of Readings from 1966-1975. In 1979-1991, Thomas High was the Director of the Center for Policy Studies in London. Thomas Hugh was an ally of Margaret Thatcher during Thatcher’s reign. In his argument, Thomas Hugh presents an argument that is usually pro-European and conservative.
In the book Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Thomas traces history from 1440-1870. He begins with the Portuguese expedition of the African coast, the journey of Christopher Columbus to America and the beginning of the slave trade particularly in South America after it was made illegal in North America.
- Summary of Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Thomas presents a very vivid depiction of slavery. The book accounts almost all that one needs to know about Slavery in the Trans-Atlantic world beginning from its origin and its development. In the first chapters, Hugh documents that the slave trade started as an accident resulting out of the need for demand and supply and advanced by the concepts of capitalism. The money usually came from the Italian merchants and bankers. The book also writes that Portugal became the first country to trade slaves from Africa, using slave trade to become a world power. Portugal would later remain as the only slave trading European power for a long time. In order to remain factual, Thomas provides data on financial records, slave numbers, and documents that make one feel like actually experiencing slavery. You would feel like you are a merchant in Lisbon or Seville trading slaves from Africa.
However, the book is less serious on the aspects of the slavery during the last year of slavery (the 19th century). The excuse for the absence of major details in the last century of slavery lies on the fact that for the most part, the core of story had been told. The consequences of slavery would thus be meaningless. The core of the story is on its beginning, its end, and the consequences of the very act of slavery.
Still, one must reckon that Hugh Thomas writes a very descriptive and detailed account of slave trade from Africa to the Americas. The story, for the most part, focuses on the different facets of slave trade as opposed to what happened to slaves in the new lands. While reading the book, one comes to the understanding that slavery was much more pronounced in Brazil and the rest of Latin America combined as opposed to North America as most people would assume. In addition to documenting the story of slaves, the book also talks about the efforts by different people to cub slavery and to stop it in its entirety.
- Hugh Thomas’s View on Slavery
First of all, one must admit that writing a comprehensive history of slave trade is a daunting task. Still, we must reckon that writing of the slave trade is necessary so that the issue is put to rest once for all. In the last three decades, there has been resurgence on the study of slavery. Some of the famous discourses have ranged on the magnitude of slavery, impact on the African societies, and its effect on the world as we know it today. In the Hugh Thomas’ Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the focus is synthesizing on what is usually defined as the “specialization” while providing a balance that is often washed away on the accounts of political correctness. It is also true that slavery is also laden with “myth and legend” that covers the entirety of the real issues of slavery. Still, Thomas grapples with accuracy of facts from a western angle. This is an ambitious take since the topic of slavery is controversial, value-laden, myriad view points. The question that we ask ourselves is Hugh Thomas accurate?
Thomas’s book is organized in chronological orders. The first section of the book basically outlines the origin as well as the beginning of slavery. In this section, Thomas recounts the landmark events that propagated the genesis of the ordeal. In the second section, Thomas now narrates the aspect which is called the “internalization of slave trade” this occurs between the time period of 16th century and the 17th century. The fourth section of the book is analytical and mostly focuses on the mechanics of the book through the ways of transportation, and the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The final chapters of the book highlight the campaign of anti-slave proponents as well as the creation of the nation-state in the new lands (the Americas).
While reading Hugh’s book, it is not difficult to tell that his work is not balanced. Argued correctly, Hugh’s book would be balanced if the same attention given to the origin would be given to the ending. However, this is not so. Thomas gives a great deal of attention on the seventeenth and eighteenth century documenting the process of slave trading, the role of African empires, and the growth of the merchant class. Out of the nine hundred pages of the book in its entirety, only one hundred and fifty pages are dedicated to the prime of the book. Perhaps one would excuse Thomas by arguing that it would not be necessary for such an arrangement since the thematic contents are covered. Still, it still begs reason why the emphasis was on the process instead the eventual establishment of slavery. Why was a holistic approach not visible?
- Critics and Comments from Other authors on Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Tully argued that the demands of colonial people for freedom present arguments on the rationality of liberal universalism. Liberal political theories attempt to include the usual "others" as an attempt to present and complete understanding of the struggle for human race for equality. While the pursuit of equal recognition of cultures, values, and equality is noble, the whole premise is wrong if liberals would not come out ought rightly to condemn colonization and the European occupation of lands foreign to Europe. It is widely debatable if liberal models stemming from western political theories of human rights and understanding of the world would present formidable grounds for the effect of slavery. Perhaps the approach for the Inclusion of natives should be taken while considering that “Indigenous people have, for lack of better terms, Indigenous political theories and a complex and contested shared Indigenous language of political thought" Well how does this connect to Hugh Thomas work Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave? Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton and Will Sanders present an argument why it is erroneous for western models to champions of freedom against the rest of the native world. First, the authors argue that “western political thought has often embodied a series of culturally specific assumptions and judgments about the relative worth of other culture’s ways of life, value system, social and political institutions and ways of organizing property” The implication of this model of thought is that western theories fail to recognize the structural and organization models of the indigenous society. Attempts of reconciliation with native communities without equality and respect between the two parties generate skeptic narratives because of discontent, negative attitude, and obvious one sidedness. It would be correct to argue that Hugh Thomas is not exempted from this accusation.
First, of all Thomas Hugh account on Slave Trade has the challenge of episodically covering themes. In his book, he documents an assortment of themes that are derived from contemporary sources. Because of this reason, it would be difficult to understand the overall structure of the themes from an African perspective. For example, he argues that African chiefs were part and parcel of the slave trade and were of equal status in money and wealth. How do we prove this information? Does the western understanding of slavery similar to that of African origin? It would also be accurate to say that Britain is pointed favorably to having done a lot in the cessation of the trade. The absence of the African lenses as well as and dominance of the British as movers as shakers of the world make the book another case of the “victor writes history”.
However, it must be understood that while the author’s intention is not to focus on Europe, he comes out as supporter of the European movement rather than a writer of the slave history. We are told the African stories from the lenses of the Europeans and not the Europeans from the lenses of Africans as it would be the case since the victims are Africans. Perhaps a similar case to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that obviously has a big contrast to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
- Authors Views
Even though Hugh Thomas’ book is indeed a very good historical piece on slavery, it would be difficult for one to say exactly why he avoided the debate that connects slavery and capitalism. How did slave trade affect the development of capitalism? I think that is question that Thomas does not answer. Everybody agrees that capitalism is the best economic system that has ever been invented. People have been able to move from one place to another without hindrance, life has been made easier as machines that make-work easier invented. Indeed, many people have escaped poverty thanks to capitalism. The USA for example is a country that has developed to become the world’s strongest and most powerful nation on earth thanks to capitalism. Capitalism empowers individuals; give them a sense of purpose and a personal drive to succeed.
When corporate and politics merge, the effect is chronic capitalism. Chronic capitalism is the source of unethical practices in business that are aimed at quick profit with disregard to human dignity, labor laws, welfare of the society, and the general betterment of the lives of ordinary citizens. The main aim of corporate is to make profit for the small group of elites at the top of the ladder. Perhaps this capitalistic analogy best explains why the pursuit of recognition is becoming unrealizable. The urge for self-determination of indigenous people is held back by the desire for self-determination, protection of territorial legitimacy, and existence of nation state from disruption. Capitalistic ideas, western political thought and the absence of a middle ground is the reason that hinders the realization of a common ground between natives and the settling societies. Perchance, Thomas Hugh is grapples with this question. As a European, Hugh fails to realize the pain of the enslaved. His story reads like a tale of the conquest of capital over a resource. It does not sound like a case study on people as people.
However, I would agree with Hugh Thomas assertion that the trade and living conditions of the slaves who were bundled in slave ships and taken to America. Abolitionist published books, pictures and writings of the conditions of the slaves. Thomas attempts to expose the dangers of life and the need for understanding that even at the height of slavery, there were people who objected to the very idea of trading human beings.
Still, it is not difficult for one to classify The “Slave Trade” as a curious book that attempts to expose the cruelty of humanity. Thomas eschews an extensive discussion relating to the “number game” that arises from the multidisciplinary search for quantification of the number of slaves that are transported across the Atlantic Ocean. Although Thomas covers this material extensively on the appendix, it is still not conclusive enough.
- Personal Views on the subject
The scramble for Africa was marked with imperialistic rhetoric and was justified with the belief that Africans were culturally inferior to the Europeans. The scientific world believed that it was the Europeans burden to ensure that the Africans were civilized. The assumption of the uncivilization of Africans meant that the continent was a place where savagery ruled supreme and where the white superman from Europe was called in to fix the mess. The Europeans travelers, conquers, and settlers were influenced by these thinking and their exploration of Africa was justifiable. Thomas’s depiction documents how the process that allows the tyrant to acquire wealth and property even as the masses suffers. The book exposes the hypocrisy of imperialism of an attempt to help the natives while the real goal is to exploit them. Thomas’s narration of the story from the Whiteman’s point of view becomes a moral bystander in the whole affair although his view of Africans is still questionable.
In the Slave Trade, the elements of racism are stronger yet hidden. Slavery and the arguments of African participants seem to evoke some moral parallels on the parts of Europeans. Still, Africans are a mere backdrop. He sees them as a human blank screen upon which he can use his philosophical wit and existential struggles for analysis. Thomas uses the exoticism of Africans and the difference as a justification for self- contemplation. In the eyes of many Afro centrist scholars, Thomas views or disregard for Africans in his analogy is subtle yet equally dangerous. In the end, while the book offers an eye opening analysis on the dangers of colonialism, it breaks the jar of worms on the complexity of racial relationships.
Evidently, Hugh Thomas approaches Slave Trade as an example of a colonial discourse, and collapses the boundaries between fictional discourse and the discourse of institutional and political power. Obviously, Thomas’s thought has generated a rethinking of her criticism from his traditional perspective of west vs. Africa, into a more thorough surgical analysis of imperialism depicted in European literature of 19th century towards the colonial and the post colonial world. As a reader from the ‘Other’, there is no reason why I can agree with Thomas’s assertion. I do have the opinion that the tendency to focus exclusively on Eurocentric analysis of literature and other issues addressed in Slave Trade overlooks the historical significance of the British and European imperialism in nineteenth century.
The idea of slavery and who and what did what is so pervasive that the questions become the lesser of the two evils. Do we blame the African merchants or the European buyers? The idealistic abolitionist is forced to choose between aligning himself with the reality of life in the heart of Europeans or to act as a quasi partner with the Africans. At the end of the story, it becomes palpable that there is limited distinction between the morally correct and the obvious preceptors of racism and imperialism. The end of the deal is raw either way.
- Conclusion
Because of Hugh Thomas’s own position as a cultural hybrid, he manages to endow his book with the self-consciousness of an outsider, which allows him to ‘comprehend how the machine works, given that [he] and it are fundamentally not in perfect synchrony or correspondence. Thomas Hugh observes on his journey ‘belongs not to history but to documentation by the victors and perpetuators ’, and is in fact a mythological cosmos, an invention essential to imperialism’s rationale, which fascinates him and as the lurid images from colonialism’s gallery take possession of his vision these, in the absence of a dissenting discourse, come to occupy the fiction’s space.
Bibliography
E.I.A, Daesm. "An Overview of the History of Indigenous People: Self Determination." Cambridge Review 21, no. 1 (2008).
Ivison, Duncan, Paul Patton, and Will Will Sanders. Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Thomas, Hugh. Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440-1870. New York: Simon & Schuster press, 1997.
Tully, James. The Struggles of Indegenous People for and of Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
