“Broiling on the Coast of Guinea”

This chapter places Smollett’s connections to Atlantic slavery at the center of its analysis. It outlines his association with enslavers in Jamaica in the early 1740s and it speculates about his possible involvement in slave-trade voyages during the first part of this decade. It also discusses his self-acknowledged role in the sale of enslaved people in the 1750s and 60s. Moreover, the chapter examines Smollett’s depictions of the slave trade and enslaved people in Roderick Random. It contextualizes Smollett’s account of the slave trade through a comparison with the private letters of Richard Holden of Baldovie (a Scottish surgeon and merchant based in Bristol during the 1740s and 50s). This comparison of Smollett’s published text and Holden’s private letters underscores the extent of the distortions and silences in Smollett’s portrayal of Atlantic slavery.