Bounding Oceans, Encompassing Forests: Mobility and Dislocation in the Atlantic Mahogany Trade

Jennifer L. Anderson

This paper explores two aspects of mobility and consequent dislocation experienced by the enslaved people swept up into the mahogany trade in the mid-eighteenth century. Part I examines the activities of several New England merchants who regularly sold enslaved individuals from one work venue to another in service of the exotic wood trade in Central America and the West Indies. Informal slave sales reshaped peoples’ lives even as they redistributed labor and capital among interconnected ventures, including the high-risk mahogany trade. Part II examines how the rain forest environment shaped the character of slavery in mahogany-harvesting regions. Working within challenging and unstructured natural settings many enslaved persons experienced a high degree of mobility, autonomy, and, at times, even opportunities for self-emancipation. In many ways for its participants, the mahogany trade helped to set the Atlantic world in motion.

[WP# 04CR018]