Before the auction room in Richmond, before the cane piece in Barbados, before even the ship what was the business? Captives were produced by war, by raiding, by judicial condemnation, by seizure for debt, by kidnapping and then sold, at the beach, where the African procurement business met the European shipping business. Now follow the money, because the money is a map of the early modern world. But the diary of Antera Duke will not let me stand there comfortably, and it should not let you. The buyers kept books, the sellers kept books, nobody in this story is safely somebody else.