Polony and Gauvain: A Conversation off the African Coast

This paper takes an up-close look at the process of slave-purchasing, by exploring a unique set of 100 letters between a La Rochelle slave-ship captain, Jerôme Gauvain, and his second, Claude-Vincent Polony as they purchased slaves off the coast of Senegal in 1787. Written almost daily over the course of four months, these letters show the mechanisms of the transatlantic slave trade at work as Gauvain and Polony corresponded about various problems involved in trading manufactured goods for human beings. Through these letters this paper will peel back the macro layer of the transatlantic slave trade to examine the uncertainties and ambiguities of day-to-day slave trading, the petty arguments between sailors aboard the slave ship and the small glimpses of individual African people who get caught up in the transatlantic slave trade.