Abstract

GARRIDO, Santiago; LALOUF, Alberto  and  THOMAS, Hernán. SAILBOATS AND STEAMBOATS, SPEED AND DECEPTION: A SOCIO-TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSFORMATIONS IN MARITIME NAVIGATION IN THE PROCESS OF ABOLISHING THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. hist.crit. [online]. 2011, n.44, pp.32-54. ISSN 0121-1617.

This article analyzes the process of co-constructing the systems of maritime navigation, naval design, and the Atlantic slave trade during the nineteenth century. To do so, it reconstructs the complex relations between actors, artifacts, states, institutions, scientific and technological knowledge, ideologies, and the techno-productive systems involved in this process. From the end of the eighteenth century, the legitimacy of the transatlantic slave trade was increasingly questioned. In 1807, the British government - representing the county with the greatest participation in the trade at the time - unilaterally abolished it. Simultaneously, it started actively persecuting slave traders and promoted the abolition of the trade among the countries still involved. In this new scenario, transformations occurred among the heterogeneous elements tied to the slave trade, as well as the kinds and ways of interaction between them. To overcome mono-causal and deterministic explanations of technological development, the theoretical and methodological approach we use is constructivist. This allows us to identify new relations, reconstruct new processes, and generate new explanations.

Keywords : Slave trade; slave ships; abolition; maritime navigation; technology.

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