ipl-logo

African Americans: The Middle Passage

461 Words2 Pages

How were captives treated during their journey otherwise known as the Middle Passage? The Middle Passage refers to the journey in which Africans were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies as slaves and were then sold or traded for raw materials. Due to the fact that Africans were considered as less than human, the conditions they were forced to endure during the Middle Passage were appalling. Evidently, the conditions varied by ship and voyage, yet the same problems arose; disease, abuse, lack of food and water as well as inadequate living conditions. The captain and crew members didn’t pay much consideration to the Africans, in fact, they were chained together and crammed below decks in order to fill ships to their maximum …show more content…

However, the widespread of disease could have been partly prevented if captains had provided basic hygiene, yet a bucket was all captives received, if at all. To make matters worse a bucket would be shared between multiple slaves, many of who wouldn’t even bother to use it, but to relieve themselves while laying down. This meaning that the Africans had no other choice than to lay in their own excrement for the duration of the voyage. Having to live under these conditions, disease would always be a constant. Obviously, the slaves would attempt to resist, in many instances it was refusing to eat or committing suicide. In turn, crews often force fed or tortured slaves and put nets on the sides of ships to keep slaves from attempting suicide. Rebellions were also common, despite the issue of originating from different nations, therefore speaking different languages, affecting communication and planning. However any resistance was met with corporal punishment in the form of whipping. After taking into consideration the lack of space, limited food and water, abuse, and disease, a high mortality rate of an estimated 15% of slave passengers dying en route is understandable. The treatment was undoubtedly inhumane, one can argue it was the event during the slave trade that stripped African people of power and

Show More
Related

  • Southern Slavery Research Paper

    1538 Words  | 7 Pages

    In Africa, men, women, and children were being kidnapped and sold. Once abducted from their home, Europeans would make their way back to the port to transport the slaves to the New World. Most of the time salves never knew where they would end up. Before Africans would be transported, each slave would be branded on the chest and this was a way to claim a slave for when they tried to escape (Hylton). Once boarded on a ship

    Read More

  • The American Pageant Chapter 4 Apush

    326 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some slaves jumped overboard then suffering. Others staged violent shipboard

    Read More

  • The Triangular Trade: Middle Passage

    383 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the Triangular Trade, natural resources, goods, crops, and slaves were trade to the New World (Americas). Middle Passage was a stage of the Triangular Trade where millions of African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Islands (West Indies) and North and South America. The slaves weren’t treated fairly and in fact they were exploited. They were abused, whipped, and harmed by the Spaniards.

    Read More

  • Summary Of A Strange New Land

    1171 Words  | 5 Pages

    Strange New Land The time period and events of when slavery took place is a topic that is frequently and heavily covered in United States history. Peter Wood’s book, A Strange New Land gives an intrinsic synopsis of slavery from the very beginning of slavery in the Americas dating 1492 all the way through the start of the American Revolution in 1775. Wood reveals insight into the excruciating lives and the daily challenges slaves in the Americas endured.

    Read More

  • Slavery In Olaudah Equiano's Worlds Together Worlds Apart

    527 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the main themes of Worlds Together Worlds Apart is no matter what culture a group of people is a part of each community has the goal of expanding their wealth through trade. This desire for wealth and exotic goods has led multiple civilizations to carry out atrocities against other people just to satisfy their lust for riches. One of the most common ways dominant civilizations would oppress the unfortunate was through slavery. As populations grew from the late sixteenth to the nineteenth century demand for more goods increased which meant there needed to be more cheap labor. This cheap labor was found in Africa and resulted in the transportation of around 12 million Africans from their home land to the Americas.

    Read More

  • The Overall Message Of Marcus Rediker

    1498 Words  | 6 Pages

    Marcus Rediker captured the stories and events of past-time common day slaves; he transformed their words into the common language to which most American people understood. Although his book unveiled the terrifying, tragic every day life of slavery, the overall message of the book was powerful and eye opening. Captives of the African continent withstood an extraneous amount of suffering through the process of becoming a slave, through the magnitudes they overcame from many forms of resistance, and real life accounts, which influenced many to join the abolishment movement. The insight that Rediker gave to many people that were skeptical about slavery and gave them a way to choose a side. Marcus Rediker’s emphasis of slaves, sailors, and slave

    Read More

  • Greed In The Middle Passage

    184 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Middle Passage was borne of greed. In the "Stowage of the British Slave Ship Brookes Under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788," it states, "Plan of lower deck with the stowage of 292 slaves." In order to make a profit, people forced others into inhumane conditions, where they were not only cramped but possibly fatigued, exposed to diseases, and more. Also, in the "Excerpt from The Life of Olaudah Equiano," it states, " Sometimes a few lumps of raw meat would be thrown in with their food to keep them healthy. It was also at this time in the morning that the slaves were given their daily ration of a half pint of water...

    Read More

  • African Americans In The North Dbq Essay

    594 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although blacks were technically granted freedom in the North by the nineteenth century at the latest, in practice they were only granted restricted amounts of economic and social freedom while their political freedom was nonexistent. Despite their newly acquired freedom blacks in the north were constantly subjected to racial prejudices that undermined any effort to actively participate in the development of the American political system. Out of the six New England states in the North only one of the states, Massachusetts which was more tolerant of blacks at the time, permitted black males to both vote and serve jury duty, indicating that blacks had very little say over their representatives in the North (Doc A ). African American’s ability

    Read More

  • The Slave Ship Marcus Rediker Sparknotes

    1798 Words  | 8 Pages

    To the merchants and the crew of the slave ship, it was always a condition of “profits over people” (Rediker 142). In addition, this explains why African captives would be tightly crammed in the vessel so that they could be delivered in increasingly large quantities to gain profit, as long as the captives were delivered alive. Towards the end of the book, Rediker explains that “the dramas that played out on the decks of a slave ship were made possible, one might even say structured, by the capital and power of people far from the ship” (352). Merchants were highly influential in the constitution and economics the Atlantic slave trade. They funded and supplied countless voyages to other countries.

    Read More

  • How Did African Slave Trade Start

    449 Words  | 2 Pages

    The African Slave Trade is the harsh movement from Africa to the New World. This began after the fall of Songhai 1590 CE. There were several reasons why the slave trade began. Death of Native Americans led to more demand for slaves. Production of wood, fur, coffee, tobacco, and sugar became reasons European countries rose power.

    Read More

  • Slave Dancer Quotes

    1147 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The people of the great vessel were wicked: when we had been shipped, they took away all the small pieces of cloth which were on our bodies, and threw them into the water, then they took chains and tethered two together. Every morning they had to take the man, and throw them into the water,” (First Hand Accounts Case Study). This quote suggests that the crew expressed little sympathy to slaves. This is demonstrated in the novel by Paula Fox The Slave Dancer.

    Read More

  • The Negative Impacts Of Europeans To The New World

    1031 Words  | 5 Pages

    Along with beating the African men, they would rape the African women. It was already bad enough that they made them live in such horrific conditions in the bottom of boat, laying on each other, all while being completely naked and chained to each other but they would also be thrown into the ocean, still chained up will a heavy anchor at the end of the chains to make them not able to get loose. No one will really know how bad it was for the Africans on that boat, this is only what people were able to gather over time.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Diligent

    1541 Words  | 7 Pages

    Going on slave voyages to Africa was a dangerous occupation to perform during the time of the Atlantic slave trade considering that “nearly one crew member in four died on French slaving voyages” (Harms 80). The Diligent would lose several of its crew members during the fifteen month voyage since it was relatively common to lose crew members and even the African captives during the Atlantic slave trade. Furthermore, the journey itself was difficult to accomplish during the Atlantic slave trade because of many factors such as “increased dangers from pirates, tropical diseases, and shipboard slave revolts made it risky” (Harms 80). On their way to Whydah and Martinique, the crew of the Diligent noticed a vessel that could have potentially been a pirate ship. Pirates were such a significant threat to the crew of the Diligent, that on their way back from Martinique, the Diligent had to travel with two other ships to protect their goods from being raided and jeopardized.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Middle Passage

    760 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the reasons is that it is very expensive and troublesome to transport a huge number of slaves across the ocean. People were treated horribly, but in those days such actions were not crimes. Even if we consider them as crimes, they can not be regarded as

    Read More

  • Summary Of Drawing The Color Line By Howard Zinn

    792 Words  | 4 Pages

    As Zinn noted, “John Barbot had written, The ship’s surgeons examine every part, of every one of them… Men and women being stark naked…Such as are allowed good and sound are set on one side…marked on the breast with a red-hot iron, imprinting the mark of the French, English, or Dutch…they awaited shipment 10-15 days” (Zinn 28) After the abuse they had suffered, they were put into the slave quarters on the ships. The size of the slave quarters varied, however they were always packed and foul, with the smell of human waste. The Africans were removed from everything they had ever known, any comfort and knowledge they had about their world, was now useless.

    Read More

More about African Americans: The Middle Passage

Open Document