This is an extremely rare and uniquely insightful primary source that will be a landmark contribution to the historiographies of the Atlantic slave trade, African history, as well as German-speakers? involvement in early modern colonial projects.
Birte Pfleger, California State University, Los Angeles, author of Ethnicity Matters: A History of the German Society of Pennsylvania
Provides a remarkable glimpse of German connections to West Africa during the late 1600s from the vantage point of a relatively humble artisan... The journal [also] documents several forms of resistance among the captives aboard the Friedrich Wilhelm, including two attempted revolts.
Koslofsky and Zaugg advance several noteworthy arguments in the preface and introduction, beginning with their concise and successful demonstration of the relevance of Oettinger?s journal for multiple historiographies that are rarely in conversation with one another... This book should be of great interest to scholars of West Africa and the transatlantic slave trade during the seventeenth century and will be a superb resource for undergraduate-level courses that address Africa?s role in the making of early modern Europe.
African Studies Review
The book will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in early modern Germany and the slave trade, and it will be especially useful for those studying histories of race and medicine in such contexts. The journal is very teachable. Koslofsky and Zaugg have added subheadings to denote where Oettinger was when he was writing, making it easy to select the most relevant passages. It would make a fine addition to syllabi, especially when paired with an enslaved person?s account of medical examination.
Liana DeMarco, Yale University
The annotations allow a broad audience to follow the text without problems... for researchers interested in the slave trade of the seventeenth century, the laborers involved in this trade, and the culinary and medicinal practices aboard ship, this important publication by Koslofsky and Zaugg now offers an essential and instructive contribution.
Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte
