The Slave Ship Fredensborg.

By Leif Svalesen. Translated by Pat Shaw and Selena Winsnes. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, c. 2000. Pp. 244. $45.00, ISBN 0-253-33777-1.)

Leif Svalesen has brought a slave ship and its crew back from the dead in a way that few histories of the slave trade have ever done. In 1974 Svalesen and a team of underwater archaeologists made a remarkable discovery off the coast of Norway--the wreckage of a slave ship that sank in 1768. That location may appear to be an unlikely one for a slave ship, and the story of that ship, its discovery, and the reaction to the find in Norway is filled with surprises.

The Fredensborg may well be, as the author claims, "the best documented ... wreck of the transatlantic slave trade to be located so far" (p. 236). The ship left Copenhagen in June 1767 and traded for 265 slaves at Danish-Norwegian forts along the Gold Coast of Africa. Just under 10 percent of the slaves died during the ship's middle passage, but over one-third of the crew also died during the voyage. The Dutch sold their human cargo at St. Croix, then loaded the ship with sugar, tobacco, and other tropical products for the return trip. The ship had almost reached its destination when it wrecked during a violent storm.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One will be of greatest value to historians. In it Svalesen uses an incredibly rich documentary base to recreate the voyage in exquisite detail and provide a good overview of Dutch involvement in the slave trade, but scholars of the trade will find it short on analysis and context. The second section describes the discovery and excavation of the underwater site and the author's attempt to retrace its voyage. The items retrieved from the underwater wreckage included everyday articles and more unlikely items such as a prayer book, the bones of a peacock, and an African mortar for grinding grain. Once the wreck was excavated, Svalesen traveled to the West Indies and West Africa in an attempt to find some clues about the Africans who were sold from the ship.

The book has had a surprising impact in Scandinavia and may have a lasting impact around the Atlantic world. As described in the epilogue, a cartoon version has been published for young readers, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) has funded museum exhibitions in Ghana and St. Croix and has been the major financial supporter of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project (in cooperation with UNESCO) to promote the teaching of the history and impact of the slave trade in secondary schools in Europe, Africa, and the Americas (now being organized in the United States). If that project succeeds in its goal to break the silence surrounding the slave trade, it will be a most worthy and lasting monument to a doomed slave ship.

RANDY J. SPARKS
Tulane University