Abstract: Perder a mãe: uma jornada pela rota atlântica da escravidão, by Saidiya Hartman, examines the Atlantic slave trade’s pathways, seeking remnants of the enslaved. Hartman employs “critical fabulation” to bridge historical voids, although her approach has faced criticism for potential overgeneralizations and anachronisms. Nevertheless, it introduces a novel perspective to slavery’s historiography, emphasizing both individual and collective experiences of the enslaved’s descendants.
Keywords: atlantic trafficking, slavery, and identities.
“Losing Your Mother: A Journey Through the Atlantic Route of Slavery,” by American writer Saidiya Hartman, released in 2006, was translated into Portuguese and published in 2021 by Bazar do Tempo. “Perder a Mãe” blends autobiography with the structure of a novel and centers on research experiences in the quest for “remnants” and routes taken by slaves before their crossing. The book addresses issues such as identity, belonging, and the similarities and differences between both sides of the Atlantic.
Hartman, born in Brooklyn, New York, is a writer and academic, serving as a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of “Scenes of Subjection” (1997) and “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” (2019). “Losing a Mother” comprises 12 chapters, in addition to a prologue and afterword written by Fernanda Silva e Sousa and José Luiz Pereira da Costa. The book emerges in the Brazilian publishing landscape amid a growing discourse on race and the surge of black literature as a tool to counteract silence and/or generalizations about captivity and the quest for freedom.
The author’s interest in the subject of slavery was ignited by her grandfather Moses, who disclosed that his mother and grandmother had been enslaved in Alabama. “He didn’t remember any other names. When he spoke of these things, I saw how the sadness and anger of not knowing his relatives distorted the soft lines of his face” (p.20). Hartman describes feeling “devastated” upon learning from her grandmother that she knew nothing about their enslavement. On her second trip to Ghana as a Fulbright scholar, Hartman embarked on a journey to trace the routes and dungeons to identify potential remnants of those who were captured, sold, and transported to the Americas. The author introduces speculative narratives about the experiences of enslaved Africans through “critical fabulation,” a method used to address sources and fill in historical gaps, silences, and instances of forgetting.
Contrary to the historiographic trend of using terms such as “enslaved persons,” Hartman employs the term “slave” to underscore the inhumane processes and violence involved in both the treatment of these individuals and the documentary records of the time. For Silva e Sousa (2023, p.05), it is about confronting the “irreparable violence of Western history and modernity, resisting the romance of those who are willing and eager to declare: ‘yes, we triumph, we light!'”
Labeled an “outsider” upon her arrival in Ghana, Hartman scrutinizes the idealized conception of “Africa” within “Afro-America” and questions which Africa was claimed by African-Americans: “Is it the Africa of royalty and powerful states or the Africa of disposable commoners?” (p.41). Her experiences revealed that the divisions between the Atlantic margins were much deeper, with locals viewing her as a foreigner. Hartman discusses the complexities of identity and belonging, noting that her outsider presence in Ghana served as a reminder of those who were taken and symbolized an unfinished past.
In the second chapter, Hartman explores the arrival of the Portuguese on the Gold Coast in the 15th century and their integration into the existing slave market. She describes the construction of the São Jorge da Mina Fort, a “deposit of people” named in honor of São Jorge, a saint who “embodied the civilization opposed to bestial antagonists and monstrous races” (p.83). Saint George thus represented the Portuguese, a symbol of civility fighting the dragon, which symbolized the perceived inferiority of African societies.
In the third chapter, Hartman offers a critical analysis of classical history’s omission of the unromantic aspects of the past. She delves into the tragedy of slavery, which inflicted violent scars on families and narratives of rape, resulting in limited, scarce, and fragmented information due to these being taboo topics. Hartman challenges the traditional narrative, exposing the gaps left by official history and underscoring the impact of slavery on family relationships and the identity formation of descendants.
In the fourth chapter, Hartman discusses the lives of returnees and their quest for a sense of identity and belonging among descendants of enslaved people. By examining the emotional and historical dimensions of this process, she highlights the contradictions and complexities faced by descendants. The author also stresses the significance of the past and origins in shaping identity, while questioning traditional narratives and advocating for a more comprehensive understanding of African and African-American experiences.
In the fifth chapter, Hartman reflects on the experiences of those who returned to the African continent in search of the imagined Africa. She investigates the complexities and nuances of the African-American experience on the continent and the alienation felt by those who remained: “their constructions fueled the ‘suspicion that the slave trade might not have been so bad, given the wealth that African Americans had.’ It was confirmation of the ‘impossibility of returning'” (p.129).
In the sixth chapter, Hartman describes her journey through the dungeons of Cape Coast Castle in search of those captured ancestors, for “they embody everything that was invisible, peripheral, or dispensable for History with a capital H” (p.147). She undertakes a critical analysis of what remained: “blood, excrement, and dirt.” Hartman reflects on the persistence or continuities of colonial violence, noting that racism “feeds the feeling of not belonging” and reminding us that “we are still looking for a way out of prison” (p.169).
In the seventh chapter, Hartman discusses the violence and dehumanization endured by enslaved people during transportation. Using a judicial transcript as a basis, she employs the method of fabulation to recreate scenes, sounds, and hidden aspects, rescuing silenced stories of those who were thrown into the sea. Hartman reveals the consequences of the slave trade.
In the subsequent chapter, the author examines the rituals conducted to suppress the slaves’ desires for revenge and return. She highlights the current valorization of tourism around the memory of slavery, arguing that this leads to greater forgetting, mainly because visitors to Ghana are hesitant to recognize the humble origins of their ancestors, overlooking the fact that those sold were not of royalty. Slavery produced African Americans eager to return and Ghanaians eager to leave, evidence that abolition and decolonization “failed to achieve” (p.216).
In the ninth chapter, Hartman reflects on the visual perception within Western Philosophy and its significance for reflection and thought formulation. Her experiences during power outages in Ghana led her to realize that “illumination” was insufficient for understanding African social dynamics. The title of the chapter (“The Difficult Times”) refers to the enduring marks of colonialism on the continent but also echoes how slavery is described by descendants, encapsulating one of its core ideas: the historical continuity of slavery.
In the tenth chapter, Hartman recounts her journey to Salaga and the dynamics surrounding the largest slave market in the Kingdom of Gonja. According to the author, slaves were transported from the interior, captured by adherents of Islam who waged jihad against “infidels,” mainly from leaderless agricultural societies deemed inferior. Hartman underscores the complexity of the slavery system in northern Ghana: “The victimized people had to rely on the tactics of their enemies to survive” (p.239). Currently, slavery is viewed as dishonorable, a taboo among descendants, and a pact of silence ensures “peace.”
In the following chapter, Hartman analyzes the dynamics of purchasing African slaves, engaging with Karl Marx’s thoughts on primitive capital accumulation, which she defines as an “economy of robbery.” She highlights the inequality of gains, noting that the cowrie shell currency did not yield lasting benefits for Africans, becoming obsolete and worthless, especially when colonization ceased. For royalty, cowrie shells symbolized prestige; for commoners, however, they were tainted by blood and multiplied from captured lives.
In the final chapter, Hartman narrates her experience traveling to Gwolu, a city in northern Ghana, and expresses her frustration with the concept of unity between Africans on the continent and the diaspora, revealing her sense of isolation. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of her writing is the acknowledgment of her limitations and failures.
The landscapes, abandoned villages, walls, and ancient baobab trees served as traces of those who fled from hunters, stories of survival and fortune. These elements helped forge new identities and collectivities, unveiling the malleability of an Africa that “never had a single identity, but plural and contested identities” (p.291).
This wall was built in the 19th century by Gwollu Koro Limann, as a defence against slave traders for the local residents of the town of Gwollu of that time. Imagem: Ghana Museuns and Monumnts Board
Although the author extensively reflects on individual, collective, and familial experiences, it is crucial to note that these experiences cannot be universally applied. The assertion that “slaves do not have bloodlines” (p.98) is erroneous. This statement is particularly problematic as it aligns closely with Stanley Elkins’s argument that slavery dismantled the family structure of the enslaved. Moreover, Hartman’s approach reveals a limitation evident in her use of the notion of “country,” as when she states that “the men in the dungeon clung so much to the ground, as if it were the soil of their country” (p.159), which can be interpreted as anachronistic.
Conversely, Hartman proposes an alternative approach to producing a history of slavery that addresses the lack of sources, mitigating this challenge through “critical fabulation.” By adopting fictional narratives, Hartman transcends the limitations of sources produced by oppressors. This approach challenges academic conventions of neutrality and detachment in historical production.
Therefore, the book serves as an invaluable resource for researchers interested in black families and the African diaspora, proposing a study of those historically marginalized. While
Hartman may not fully map the “trajectory between the Gold Coast and Curaçao, between Montgomery and Brooklyn” (p.163), she achieves her objective of uncovering traces of the lives of those ensnared, as captured in children’s songs about “those who were torn from Gwolu and enslaved in the Americas” (p.295).
References
SILVA E SOUSA, F. “Eu não sou uma nota de rodapé para o pensamento de grandes homens brancos”: uma entrevista com Saidiya Hartman. ODEERE, [S. l.], v. 8, n. 1, p.1-23, 2023.
Summary of Perder a mãe: uma jornada pela rota atlântica da escravidão
Prólogo: O caminho dos estrangeiros
1. Afrotopia
2. Mercados e Mártires
3. O romance familiar
4. Venha, retorne, criança
5. A tribo da Passagem do Meio
6. Tantos calabouços
7. O livro dos Mortos
8. Perder a mãe
9. Os tempos difíceis
10. A estrada faminta
11. Búzios de Sangue
12. Sonhos fugitivos
Lista de ilustrações
Notas
Prefácio: Os ancestrais que não podem ser esquecidos | Fernanda Silva e Sousa
HARTMAN, S. Perder a mãe: uma jornada pela rota atlântica da escravidão. Rio de Janeiro: Bazar do Tempo, 2021. 364p. Review by: SILVA GOMES, José Edwyn. Search for what’s left. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.15, jan./feb., 2024. Available at <https://www.criticahistoriografica.com.br/en/search-for-whats-left-jose-edwyn-silva-gomess-ufs-review-of-perder-a-mae-uma-jornada-pela-rota-atlantica-da-escravidao-by-saidiva-hartman/>.
Abstract: Perder a mãe: uma jornada pela rota atlântica da escravidão, by Saidiya Hartman, examines the Atlantic slave trade’s pathways, seeking remnants of the enslaved. Hartman employs “critical fabulation” to bridge historical voids, although her approach has faced criticism for potential overgeneralizations and anachronisms. Nevertheless, it introduces a novel perspective to slavery’s historiography, emphasizing both individual and collective experiences of the enslaved’s descendants.
Keywords: atlantic trafficking, slavery, and identities.
“Losing Your Mother: A Journey Through the Atlantic Route of Slavery,” by American writer Saidiya Hartman, released in 2006, was translated into Portuguese and published in 2021 by Bazar do Tempo. “Perder a Mãe” blends autobiography with the structure of a novel and centers on research experiences in the quest for “remnants” and routes taken by slaves before their crossing. The book addresses issues such as identity, belonging, and the similarities and differences between both sides of the Atlantic.
Hartman, born in Brooklyn, New York, is a writer and academic, serving as a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of “Scenes of Subjection” (1997) and “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” (2019). “Losing a Mother” comprises 12 chapters, in addition to a prologue and afterword written by Fernanda Silva e Sousa and José Luiz Pereira da Costa. The book emerges in the Brazilian publishing landscape amid a growing discourse on race and the surge of black literature as a tool to counteract silence and/or generalizations about captivity and the quest for freedom.
The author’s interest in the subject of slavery was ignited by her grandfather Moses, who disclosed that his mother and grandmother had been enslaved in Alabama. “He didn’t remember any other names. When he spoke of these things, I saw how the sadness and anger of not knowing his relatives distorted the soft lines of his face” (p.20). Hartman describes feeling “devastated” upon learning from her grandmother that she knew nothing about their enslavement. On her second trip to Ghana as a Fulbright scholar, Hartman embarked on a journey to trace the routes and dungeons to identify potential remnants of those who were captured, sold, and transported to the Americas. The author introduces speculative narratives about the experiences of enslaved Africans through “critical fabulation,” a method used to address sources and fill in historical gaps, silences, and instances of forgetting.
Contrary to the historiographic trend of using terms such as “enslaved persons,” Hartman employs the term “slave” to underscore the inhumane processes and violence involved in both the treatment of these individuals and the documentary records of the time. For Silva e Sousa (2023, p.05), it is about confronting the “irreparable violence of Western history and modernity, resisting the romance of those who are willing and eager to declare: ‘yes, we triumph, we light!'”
Labeled an “outsider” upon her arrival in Ghana, Hartman scrutinizes the idealized conception of “Africa” within “Afro-America” and questions which Africa was claimed by African-Americans: “Is it the Africa of royalty and powerful states or the Africa of disposable commoners?” (p.41). Her experiences revealed that the divisions between the Atlantic margins were much deeper, with locals viewing her as a foreigner. Hartman discusses the complexities of identity and belonging, noting that her outsider presence in Ghana served as a reminder of those who were taken and symbolized an unfinished past.
In the second chapter, Hartman explores the arrival of the Portuguese on the Gold Coast in the 15th century and their integration into the existing slave market. She describes the construction of the São Jorge da Mina Fort, a “deposit of people” named in honor of São Jorge, a saint who “embodied the civilization opposed to bestial antagonists and monstrous races” (p.83). Saint George thus represented the Portuguese, a symbol of civility fighting the dragon, which symbolized the perceived inferiority of African societies.
In the third chapter, Hartman offers a critical analysis of classical history’s omission of the unromantic aspects of the past. She delves into the tragedy of slavery, which inflicted violent scars on families and narratives of rape, resulting in limited, scarce, and fragmented information due to these being taboo topics. Hartman challenges the traditional narrative, exposing the gaps left by official history and underscoring the impact of slavery on family relationships and the identity formation of descendants.
In the fourth chapter, Hartman discusses the lives of returnees and their quest for a sense of identity and belonging among descendants of enslaved people. By examining the emotional and historical dimensions of this process, she highlights the contradictions and complexities faced by descendants. The author also stresses the significance of the past and origins in shaping identity, while questioning traditional narratives and advocating for a more comprehensive understanding of African and African-American experiences.
In the fifth chapter, Hartman reflects on the experiences of those who returned to the African continent in search of the imagined Africa. She investigates the complexities and nuances of the African-American experience on the continent and the alienation felt by those who remained: “their constructions fueled the ‘suspicion that the slave trade might not have been so bad, given the wealth that African Americans had.’ It was confirmation of the ‘impossibility of returning'” (p.129).
In the sixth chapter, Hartman describes her journey through the dungeons of Cape Coast Castle in search of those captured ancestors, for “they embody everything that was invisible, peripheral, or dispensable for History with a capital H” (p.147). She undertakes a critical analysis of what remained: “blood, excrement, and dirt.” Hartman reflects on the persistence or continuities of colonial violence, noting that racism “feeds the feeling of not belonging” and reminding us that “we are still looking for a way out of prison” (p.169).
In the seventh chapter, Hartman discusses the violence and dehumanization endured by enslaved people during transportation. Using a judicial transcript as a basis, she employs the method of fabulation to recreate scenes, sounds, and hidden aspects, rescuing silenced stories of those who were thrown into the sea. Hartman reveals the consequences of the slave trade.
In the subsequent chapter, the author examines the rituals conducted to suppress the slaves’ desires for revenge and return. She highlights the current valorization of tourism around the memory of slavery, arguing that this leads to greater forgetting, mainly because visitors to Ghana are hesitant to recognize the humble origins of their ancestors, overlooking the fact that those sold were not of royalty. Slavery produced African Americans eager to return and Ghanaians eager to leave, evidence that abolition and decolonization “failed to achieve” (p.216).
In the ninth chapter, Hartman reflects on the visual perception within Western Philosophy and its significance for reflection and thought formulation. Her experiences during power outages in Ghana led her to realize that “illumination” was insufficient for understanding African social dynamics. The title of the chapter (“The Difficult Times”) refers to the enduring marks of colonialism on the continent but also echoes how slavery is described by descendants, encapsulating one of its core ideas: the historical continuity of slavery.
In the tenth chapter, Hartman recounts her journey to Salaga and the dynamics surrounding the largest slave market in the Kingdom of Gonja. According to the author, slaves were transported from the interior, captured by adherents of Islam who waged jihad against “infidels,” mainly from leaderless agricultural societies deemed inferior. Hartman underscores the complexity of the slavery system in northern Ghana: “The victimized people had to rely on the tactics of their enemies to survive” (p.239). Currently, slavery is viewed as dishonorable, a taboo among descendants, and a pact of silence ensures “peace.”
In the following chapter, Hartman analyzes the dynamics of purchasing African slaves, engaging with Karl Marx’s thoughts on primitive capital accumulation, which she defines as an “economy of robbery.” She highlights the inequality of gains, noting that the cowrie shell currency did not yield lasting benefits for Africans, becoming obsolete and worthless, especially when colonization ceased. For royalty, cowrie shells symbolized prestige; for commoners, however, they were tainted by blood and multiplied from captured lives.
In the final chapter, Hartman narrates her experience traveling to Gwolu, a city in northern Ghana, and expresses her frustration with the concept of unity between Africans on the continent and the diaspora, revealing her sense of isolation. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of her writing is the acknowledgment of her limitations and failures.
The landscapes, abandoned villages, walls, and ancient baobab trees served as traces of those who fled from hunters, stories of survival and fortune. These elements helped forge new identities and collectivities, unveiling the malleability of an Africa that “never had a single identity, but plural and contested identities” (p.291).
This wall was built in the 19th century by Gwollu Koro Limann, as a defence against slave traders for the local residents of the town of Gwollu of that time. Imagem: Ghana Museuns and Monumnts Board
Although the author extensively reflects on individual, collective, and familial experiences, it is crucial to note that these experiences cannot be universally applied. The assertion that “slaves do not have bloodlines” (p.98) is erroneous. This statement is particularly problematic as it aligns closely with Stanley Elkins’s argument that slavery dismantled the family structure of the enslaved. Moreover, Hartman’s approach reveals a limitation evident in her use of the notion of “country,” as when she states that “the men in the dungeon clung so much to the ground, as if it were the soil of their country” (p.159), which can be interpreted as anachronistic.
Conversely, Hartman proposes an alternative approach to producing a history of slavery that addresses the lack of sources, mitigating this challenge through “critical fabulation.” By adopting fictional narratives, Hartman transcends the limitations of sources produced by oppressors. This approach challenges academic conventions of neutrality and detachment in historical production.
Therefore, the book serves as an invaluable resource for researchers interested in black families and the African diaspora, proposing a study of those historically marginalized. While
Hartman may not fully map the “trajectory between the Gold Coast and Curaçao, between Montgomery and Brooklyn” (p.163), she achieves her objective of uncovering traces of the lives of those ensnared, as captured in children’s songs about “those who were torn from Gwolu and enslaved in the Americas” (p.295).
References
SILVA E SOUSA, F. “Eu não sou uma nota de rodapé para o pensamento de grandes homens brancos”: uma entrevista com Saidiya Hartman. ODEERE, [S. l.], v. 8, n. 1, p.1-23, 2023.
Summary of Perder a mãe: uma jornada pela rota atlântica da escravidão
Prólogo: O caminho dos estrangeiros
1. Afrotopia
2. Mercados e Mártires
3. O romance familiar
4. Venha, retorne, criança
5. A tribo da Passagem do Meio
6. Tantos calabouços
7. O livro dos Mortos
8. Perder a mãe
9. Os tempos difíceis
10. A estrada faminta
11. Búzios de Sangue
12. Sonhos fugitivos
Lista de ilustrações
Notas
Prefácio: Os ancestrais que não podem ser esquecidos | Fernanda Silva e Sousa
HARTMAN, S. Perder a mãe: uma jornada pela rota atlântica da escravidão. Rio de Janeiro: Bazar do Tempo, 2021. 364p. Review by: SILVA GOMES, José Edwyn. Search for what’s left. Crítica Historiográfica. Natal, v.4, n.15, jan./feb., 2024. Available at <https://www.criticahistoriografica.com.br/en/search-for-whats-left-jose-edwyn-silva-gomess-ufs-review-of-perder-a-mae-uma-jornada-pela-rota-atlantica-da-escravidao-by-saidiva-hartman/>.
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Hartman, born in Brooklyn, New York, is a writer and academic, serving as a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of “Scenes of Subjection” (1997) and “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” (2019). “Losing a Mother” comprises 12 chapters, in addition to a prologue and afterword written by Fernanda Silva e Sousa and José Luiz Pereira da Costa. The book emerges in the Brazilian publishing landscape amid a growing discourse on race and the surge of black literature as a tool to counteract silence and/or generalizations about captivity and the quest for freedom.
José Edwyn Silva Gomes is a master’s student in the Programa de Pós Graduação em História at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe (PROHIS/UFS), He earned his undergraduate degree in História (UFS) and is a member of the Grupo de Estudos em História da África e Diáspora Africana (ANANSE-GEPHADA/UFS). Among his publications are: Trabalho e racismo na “Aracaju romântica” dos anos 1940 e 1950 and Antonina Gomes: de neta de escravizados à cidadania negra (1910-1971). ID LATTES: http://lattes.cnpq.br/1734062228957167. ID ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8311-4406; e-mail: edwynhistoria@gmail.com.
