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
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Show MoreStrange 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.
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
“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.
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
In listening to the lecture it is evident that there was unfair treatment with fatal outcome at times of African Americans. Throughout history I have seen the changes made by society and government. African Americans have been heard and continue to be heard as issues occur. I find it hard to describe in words how I feel about the treatment of African Americans in years past.
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
The need for survival was essential for both the crew of the slave ship and the African captives. When African captives were loaded on board a slave ship, a form of a cold war would reign on the ship until they sold all the captives as slaves at their destination in the New World. The crew aboard the slave ship would become increasingly paranoid since they did not know if a slave uprising would break out or not. All members of a slave ship crew (including cooks, carpenters, and doctors) would become jail keepers. The only way the crew of a slave ship could survive the middle passage is to prevent the outbreak of a slave rebellion.
Many times slaves would often jump over-board to stop the suffering. When they arrived in America, they were marched off the ships to the slave blocks, examined again, and sold to the highest
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.
Similarly, this was the circumstance with many of the slave ships during the Atlantic slave trade. The author then goes on to explain how paranoid slave ship crews were during the Atlantic slave trade because of the fear of a slave revolt. Harms then mentions several other slave ships were slave revolts broke out during the Atlantic slave trade such as: the Marie, the Excellent, the Ameriquin, and the Henry (Harms 270-271). With these examples that the author mentioned in the book, it appears that slave revolts occurred quite often on slave ships during the Atlantic slave trade. For the African captives, a revolt was essential to their survival and possibly their liberation, but to the crew of the slave ship, it meant life or dead, or even lost profits.
Since the British justified their acts towards the Africans by labeling them as an inferior race and that they were below all other groups of people, Africans were viewed as barbarians and treated as such. Working as a clerk in a sugar plantation, Equiano was a witness to cruelties of every kind, which were exercised on his fellow slaves in the Caribbean plantations. According to his testimony, African slaves that were brought to the Caribbean islands by the cargoes for purchase were exposed to the violent depredations of white clerks. Regardless of age, men and women slaves were assaulted and their body parts were cut off for mistakes that were not even worth the mention. This shows a domination of British slaveholders on the islands and
Some slaves jumped overboard then suffering. Others staged violent shipboard
Some people tried to starve, but the crew forced them to take food, beating them, tormenting them with hot coal or forcing them to open their mouths with special tools or break their teeth. The mortality caused by various diseases was very high. More than 20 percent have died from various epidemics or committed suicide. Venture Smith, describing his test, wrote: "After the usual passage, except for the great death from pox that erupted on board, we arrived on the island of Barbados, but when we reached it, out of two hundred and sixty that sailed from Africa, not more than two hundred alive.
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.
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.