Games seeking more accurate representations of the colonial past depict slavery directly. In Struggle of Empires (2004, 2020), in which players represent European powers expanding their colonial influence, practicing slavery makes some colonies cheaper to claim, but practicing slavery alone cannot win the game. Other games tempt players to engage in slavery by offering early benefits only to punish the practice as the game progresses. In Colonial: Europe’s Empires Overseas (2011), enslaved people are treated as a “cheap” resource early in the game, but once one player’s economy develops sufficiently, those who trade slaves suffer diplomatic penalties, making it harder to wage war. In Endeavor: Age of Sail (2009, 2018), enslaved people likewise begin early in the game as a cheap asset that is lost when a specific economic threshold is reached. The game penalizes slavery’s practitioners with negative points at game end.
In tempting players to engage in slavery, the mechanics of these games offer an argument that combines two interpretations of abolition. On the one hand, they deliver a structural narrative of slavery’s end: the practice fueled European expansion only to be rendered obsolete by the economic development it helped create. At the same time, in punishing the use of slavery, the games mirror the moral perspective of the abolitionists themselves, who argued that their successful diffusion of new values swelled “the torrent which swept away the slave trade.” In discussions after we play, students identify tensions in our own popular understandings of this history. This, in turn, prepares them to encounter the historiographical debate between Eric Williams, who stressed economic factors in ending slavery, and Seymour Drescher, who prioritized the ideological component.
This ambiguous interpretation of abolition reminds us that, like films, games convey value-laden depictions of the past. These three games relegate slavery to a marginal position in history, acknowledging it while permitting players to avoid it. Students may wonder whether this oblique approach sufficiently confronts players with the historical reality. Slavery is incidental in these games, but it did not feel incidental to those caught in its maw. Yet neither are we likely to want games that faithfully simulate slavery’s cruelty and violence. How, then, do we begin to define our values about how games should or should not represent difficult moments in our past? As is so often the case in classroom discussions involving subject experience, reaching definitive conclusions may be less essential than clearly defining the nature and range of our concerns.