Last week, in the course of working on an entry about slave
ships and the Middle Passage, I had occasion to write the
following paragraph: In the water, there were often sharks,
which followed the ships in warm waters, feeding off refuse.
“When dead Slaves are thrown over-board,” the Dutch merchant
William Bosman wrote in A New and Accurate Description of the
Coast of Guinea (1705), “I have sometimes, not without horrour,
seen the dismal Rapaciousness of these Animals; four or five of
them together shoot to the bottom under the Ship to tear the
dead Corps to pieces, at each bite an Arm, a Leg, or the Head is
snapt off; and before you can tell twenty have sometimes divided
the Body amongst them so nicely that not the least Particle is
left.” As it happens, sharks have been the focus of a bit of
political controversy when it comes to the slave trade. Five
years ago Congress passed a resolution commemorating the two
hundredth anniversary of the trade’s abolition. On the floor of
the House, Representative Donald