From the beginning of the book, Smallwood discusses the use of slaves by various rising powers in the Gold Coast as a possible form of income, to be used to obtain European goods, or alternatively, as a source of physical and reproductive labor. This commodification continued as the Europeans made the decision not to exploit indigenous South Americans for labor, but rather, to import Africans who were already being circulated for slave labor within Africa.

Smallwood uses the official business records of the Royal African Company to show that the captives were reduced to numbers and statistics. Through the records, she demonstrates how captives were obtained and incarcerated, and how they subsisted on the bare minimum of food and space so the Royal African Company could make a profit. The deprivation was even obvious to the buyers, though the American agents did their best to obscure the damage done by malnutrition and disease. Once sold, slaves were seen as instruments needed for the colonial production of sugar, tobacco, rice, and coffee.