Diasporic Digital Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis: Estate Sale Ledger, 1810

Lexical Construction of Human Commodification. The language of the document reduces individuals to abbreviated entries, where first names function as sufficient identifiers within a system that denies full personhood. Terms such as “Old” operate as classificatory modifiers, attaching economic meaning to age. The absence of surnames for the enslaved, contrasted with the repeated and fully marked “Hargett” in the purchaser column, establishes a linguistic hierarchy that distinguishes ownership from objecthood. Within this discourse, identity is structurally minimized while ownership is repeatedly reinforced, demonstrating how lexical choices construct social hierarchy and normalize institutional power (Machin & Mayr, 2023).

Grammatical Structuring of Ownership and Transfer. The document is organized through a ledger format that mirrors transactional grammar rather than relational description. Each line functions as a complete unit of exchange, where the subject is implied rather than stated. The enslaved individual is positioned as the object of the sentence, while the purchaser occupies the position of grammatical authority. This structure eliminates narrative continuity and replaces it with transactional immediacy, reinforcing the normalization of human transfer as routine economic practice (Machin & Mayr, 2023; Barrett, 1995).

Visual and Spatial Encoding of Power. The three-column layout visually encodes hierarchy. Names of enslaved individuals are placed on the left, purchasers in the center, and monetary values on the right. This spatial arrangement culminates in valuation, directing the reader’s eye toward price as the final and most important element. The vertical stacking of entries produces a cumulative effect, where repetition normalizes the process and obscures the violence embedded within each transaction. The ledger format itself operates as a technology of erasure, flattening lived experience into uniform rows (Machin & Mayr, 2023; Coulombe, 2022).

Kinship Fragmentation and Controlled Recognition. Entries such as “Violet Rachel & child” and “Sarah & 3 children” reveal a partial acknowledgment of familial relationships. However, this recognition is immediately subsumed into grouped valuation, where kinship is not preserved but quantified. The grouping of mothers and children suggests an economic logic tied to reproduction, where relational bonds are acknowledged only insofar as they influence market value. This reflects a controlled recognition of lineage that does not protect family integrity but instead facilitates its commodification (Du Bois, 1908; Gutman, 1976).

Intra-Familial Circulation and Power Consolidation. The recurrence of the surname “Hargett” across the purchaser column indicates redistribution within a familial network. This reflects consolidation of power through internal circulation, reinforcing both economic control and lineage continuity among enslavers. The presence of additional surnames suggests an extended social and economic network, situating the transaction within a broader system of racialized property exchange and inherited power (Barrett, 1995; Coulombe, 2022).

Economic Stratification Through Age and Capacity. Price variation reflects valuation tied to perceived labor capacity. Lower values associated with individuals marked as “Old” indicate depreciation based on age, while higher values reflect peak labor exploitation. This stratification reveals a discourse in which human worth is calculated through productivity, reducing life stages to economic metrics and converting embodied existence into fiscal value (Machin & Mayr, 2023; Phillips, 2001).

Discourse of Normalization and Administrative Distance. The ledger’s tone is administrative and detached, devoid of affect or moral commentary. This absence normalizes the sale of human beings by presenting it as routine recordkeeping embedded within bureaucratic order. The document does not defend enslavement. It assumes enslavement as ordinary, which makes the discourse especially powerful because it converts violence into procedure (Machin & Mayr, 2023; Nichols, 1952).

Linkage to Diasporic Maroon Memory Frameworks. When placed alongside quantitative findings, particularly overlaps between Maroon Geographies, Lineage, and Freedom, the ledger operates as both evidence of dispossession and a site requiring reconstruction through alternative archives such as oral lineage and spatial memory. The fragmentation visible in the ledger underscores the necessity of Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory, which reads silence, rupture, geography, and lineage as evidence where formal archives encode loss (Hargett, 2025; King, 2020; Price & Price, 1983).

References

Barrett, L. (1995). African-American slave narratives: Literacy, the body, authority. American Literary History, 7(3), 415–442.

Coulombe, J. L. (2022). Let’s stop calling them slave narratives: Anagrammatical Blackness in our academic discourse. College English, 85(2), 107–132.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1908). The Negro American family. Atlanta University Press.

Gutman, H. G. (1976). The Black family in slavery and freedom, 1750–1925. Pantheon Books.

Hargett, M. E. (2025). Marooned: A western frontier Dismal Swamp narrative. The Scholarship Without Borders Journal, 4(1), Article 6.

King, L. J. (2020). Black historical consciousness as counter-memory and oral tradition. Social Studies Review, 84(4), 35–52.

Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2023). How to do critical discourse analysis: A multimodal introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE.

Nichols, C. H., Jr. (1952). Slave narratives. Negro History Bulletin, 15(6), 107–114.

Phillips, J. (2001). The perennial value of the slave narrative. The Hudson Review, 54(2), 335–340.

Price, R., & Price, S. (1983). First-time: The historical vision of an Afro-American people. Johns Hopkins University Press.