Modeling the Marie-Séraphique: A Ship of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

In this short documentary, members of an international team of scholars and visual artists describe to videographer Steve Bransford the process of creating a 3D model of the Marie-Séraphique, a Trans-Atlantic ship active in the trade of enslaved persons from 1769 to 1774. Making use of unique surviving illustrations and details from historical texts, 3D modelers at the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship reconstructed the Marie-Séraphique. Any model will fail to convey the horror and violence endured by the captives onboard. This depiction offers insight into the making of such vessels, their design for conveyance, surveillance, and control.