The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade

A microhistory reconstructing the 1731–1732 voyage of the French slave ship Diligent from Brittany to the Bight of Benin, across the Atlantic, through Martinique, and back into litigation — built from the journal of officer Robert Durand and the lawsuit records that preserved the voyage's account books and depositions. The book reveals the full material sequence of a French slaving venture — financing, outfitting, coastal trade, warehousing at Jakin, branding, shipboard confinement, sale, and return cargo — making its local contingencies visible in a way that broader Atlantic studies cannot, and showing how commercial rationality administered rather than concealed violence.