Read the following excerpt from William Snelgrave’s *A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave-Trade* (1734), describing an interrogation of captive Africans after a failed shipboard mutiny:
'I asked them, why they had mutinied, and behaved so to me? ... They answered, that I was a great Rogue to buy them, in order to carry them away from their own Country, and that they were resolved to gain their Liberty if they could.'
The response of the captives in Snelgrave's account most directly refutes which of the following historical misconceptions about the Middle Passage?
- AThe view that shipboard rebellions were only attempted by captives who belonged to the same West African kingdom.
- BThe claim that captive resistance during the Middle Passage was confined to covert methods like hunger strikes.
- The belief that enslaved Africans were passive victims who submitted to their captivity during the Middle Passage.Answer
- DThe assertion that organized maritime mutinies did not occur until the rise of the transatlantic abolitionist movement.
Answer
The belief that enslaved Africans were passive victims who submitted to their captivity during the Middle Passage.
The correct answer is correct because the captives' explicit statement that they mutinied because they were resolved to gain their liberty directly refutes the misconception that enslaved Africans were passive participants who quietly submitted to their captivity during the Middle Passage. Instead, it highlights their agency and active resistance.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Transatlantic slave trade and shipboard resistance
Estimated Time:1m 30s