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(More customer reviews)Nick Hazlewood has written an engrossing book that gives us a rare and in-depth look into the opening salvos of the English slave trade through the voyages of Sir John Hawkyns (also spelled John Hawkins), the first English trader. Hazlewood supplies a brief biography of the Elizabethan mariner but focuses on Hawkyns' three major slave-trading voyages starting from 1562, from his departure from England to his actual acquisition of slaves in West Africa, through to his transactions in the New World and return to England.
This book is a must-have for those interested in the early Age of Exploration and the nature of early trans-Atlantic commerce, but it is of far greater significance and value for a general audience since it provides a rare glimpse into the little-known details of the wretched commerce in human beings that took place as the Americas were being settled. Treatments of the African slave trade often leave a reader wondering about the mindset and nature of the participants who were profiting from it, and Hazlewood provides us with a "you are there" feeling. He has clearly done his homework here, consulting primary literature in both English and Spanish archives to reconstruct the means by which Hawkyns acquired his slaves in West Africa, the "currency" exchanges which took place to seal the deal, the wretched and horrendous conditions on the slaving ships, and the nature of Hawkyns' eventual transactions in the Caribbean and Spanish outposts in America. What emerges is that Hawkyns was a remarkably shrewd and ruthless businessman, able to secure such an extraordinary profit margin from his deals that even Queen Elizabeth I-- initially opposed to the human commerce-- became a crucial investor in Hawkyns' slave-trading schemes, providing ships and resources for raising his crews and launching further voyages.
Hazlewood also casts Hawkyns' commerce within the broader context of 16th-century European seafaring, demonstrating how Hawkyns' actions-- viewed as smuggling by Spanish authorities-- in many ways constituted the root of the conflict that would flare between the Spaniards and English (leading to the Spanish Armada attack and a 16-year war between the two countries) later in the century. The reader is treated to an in-depth look at Hawkyns' fateful third voyage in 1567, in which his ships were attacked by a Spanish squadron off Veracruz. Hazlewood provides perhaps the best description in any recent book of the clash at Veracruz and its aftermath, both for Hawkins and his unfortunate crew members who were seized by the Spaniards. The book does drag somewhat in its later chapters but is not at all a chore to read, and Hazlewood's evocative style ensures that readers have a concrete tableau of the events that were transpiring, rather than merely an abstract depiction of them.
For what would become the United States as well as for Britain, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was integral to their history. Indeed, Americans are well aware of the brutal consequences of slavery from the Civil War in the 1860s, yet are often much less aware of the background to that "curious institution." Hazlewood details these often obscure origins with both accuracy and a highly readable presentation. The reader emerges from the book with a sense of the Hobbesian mentality and conditions that dominated seafaring in the 1500s, and a better sense of the psychology that enabled so many to allow themselves to partake in the bloody business of human enslavement and trans-Atlantic trafficking. Hawkyns is shown in all his complexity as a ruthless merchant and as an inspiring leader of his crews, who braved on-ship conditions and hostile oceans that would make most of us cringe barely minutes away from the dock. Hazlewood's book is an excellent complement to Harry Kelsey's book on John Hawkins-- which covers similar territory-- and to Hugh Thomas's general history of the slave trade. It's a must-have for historians, for teachers and school libraries (at many levels), and for those who want to learn about the often-obscure history of slavery and of the fascinating details of 16th-century Atlantic exploration and maritime commerce.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls (P.S.)
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