Technologies of the Body on the Floating Pesthouse

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 9 is the first of three to follow the slave ship on its Atlantic crossing from the African coast to the Caribbean and USA and is concerned specifically with the ship’s medical and cleansing regimes. While at sea, captives and crews sweated, overheated, dehydrated, defecated, urinated, bled, sickened, self-harmed, committed suicide, and in some cases died. This chapter asks: What were the technologies employed to mitigate the physical frailties of captives and crews? How was it possible, despite all, to keep the majority of those on board alive? It is argued that medical regimes on slave ships reflected contemporary discourses concerning the transmission of disease, and awareness within the merchant marine of the navy’s approach to combatting sickness and preserving health. At the same time, perceived differences between the black body and the white also fundamentally informed shipboard practices.