Slave Ship Conditions

With the many people in such a small place and the humidity, the temperature below decks was unbearable. There was no fresh air, nothing but the nasty stench of the latrines and peoples body odor.The air became unfit to breathe and almost suffocated them. There were children that would fall into the latrines and almost drowned. Many slaves would get sick and die in this terrible place and never make it to Barbados. Shrieks of women and the groans of the dying made the whole scene a nightmare. This caused some slaves to jump off the ship and drown themselves. The first time he was flogged was on the ship when he refused to eat. Two white men tied his feet. One white man held his hands while the other flogged or whipped him. Prisoners were severely cut and flogged for hours for trying to jump off the ship. He had never seen such savage brutal cruelty among people. When the ship reached Barbados the slaves were put into a pin like animals. At the sound of a drum, buyers rushed out to pick out the slaves they wanted to buy. Then no matter if they were friends, husbands, wives, brothers, or sisters they were separated and never to see each other again. Equiano was sold and worked on a plantation in Virginia County, weeding grass and moving stones. On this plantation he saw the black slave cook with some kind of iron muzzle that locked her mouth shut so she could hardly speak. I guess this contraption was put on her

Heinrich Heine's poem the Slave ship reveals the inhumane and horrible experiences slaves had to go through while traveling on slave ships. At the beginning of the poem the captain Mynheer van Koek of the ship admires his work, for he obtained six hundred slaves "dirt cheap". More than likely, Koek bought the slaves from African leaders who had no problem in trading their own people. Often times African leaders would do this to punish their people, not knowing the lingering effect it would have on the world. Heine's describes how Koek swapped "brandy", "trinkets", and "beads" for the precious life of a slave. In stanza 7, the captain's moment of bliss has finally come to an end we he realizes that the slaves are dieing in substantial numbers,

“The Horrors of a Slave Ship,” describes in detail, the tragic experiences of Olaudah Equiano as a captive slave. Equiano suffered many sleepless nights; he was flogged and kidnapped multiple times. In the article, the author is trying to give the reader the feeling by giving details of the brutally floggings and desperation as many slaves suffocated to death as they were placed in an overcrowded deck. Overall, the author tries to give readers their point across of the difficulties in being a captive slave.

The main focus of the document, The Horrors of a Slave Ship, is over a topic of a young boy given the name Gustavus Vassa who shared his story of his own slavery experience. He writes about a journey of heartbreak and terror and all of the restrictions he endured. He first describes the day he was kidnapped, then all of the families he was sold to. At one time he was fortunate to see his sister for a last time before being sold again to another family. Vassa observes the differences and similarities between his culture and the families’ of his owner’s cultures. Towards the end of the document, Vassa describes Africa, and how he was shipped off to a new world. He had to endure the horrors that came with being chained up with the other slaves. The boy described the smell to be unbearable and that many people would choose death their current situations. By the end of the document he portrayed the way that people were being sold in an auction and the despair of agony when they were parted from their loved ones.

The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker is a great fiction novel that describes the horrifying experiences of Africans, seamen, and captains on their journey through the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage marked the water way in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Americas. The use of slaves provided a great economy for the European countries due to the fact that these African slaves provided free labor while cultivating sugar cane in the Caribbean and America. Rediker describes the slave migration by saying, “There exists no account of the mechanism for history’s greatest forced migration, which was in many ways the key to an entire phase of globalization” (10). This tells us that African enslavement to the Americas causes a complete

The slaves were put on to these horrible ships as the Glory Field states. While the slaves were being transported they were shoved in to the bottom of the terrifying ship. With barely “any light or even fresh air” as Muhammad from the Glory Field says. An article titled An Account of the Slave Trade on

This is what slavery was all about throughout history not mattering where we were to be found. Although there really is a difference. Enslaved on a slave-ship is much more extreme. The horrible sleeping conditions, the claustrophobic space, beatings of the slaves for no reason, mal-nutrition. These are the devastating conditions that slaves on a slave ship endured each day of the passage.

Unlike the slave at the time if you found yourself on a slave boat and was a captain, you would have the best and somewhat safest job on the ship. The captain is described in document B, in a collection of Voyages and Travels by Thomas Phillips. The captain must have a reasonable live sections on the ship if the boat is a “Royal African Company” (Doc. B) ship. Since that captain need to be organized and neat to map and navigate were he is going he would also need a large clean space for that as well. In this passage the captain describes himself taking care of the ship and cleaning the floors, which would have been the crew work to do. He tries to stay away from saying that his place is large, but you can infer that from the

From the moment of capture, African men, women and children endured a relentless chain of pain and abuse. Life onboard the slave ships became a constant battle for survival, as the gruesome conditions below the deck presented formidable physical health problems. Burnside describes the African slaves descent into hell:

The article, The Horrors of a Slave Ship, is first person point of view account of the capturing of Olaudah Equiano. He tells the story of how he was captured from his home while his parents were away to be used as a slave. The article starts off with Olaudah and his sister being captured while their parents were away. They were taken into the woods, tied up, and forced to travel bound without food. After many days of traveling, Olaudah and his sister were separated. From that point he was passed around and finally landed in the hands of his first owner. His first owner was a smith and Olaudah worked in his shop. He was there for about a month

Disease was a big thing on board due to close quarters. Common illnesses were fever, dysentery, and smallpox. Slaves were fed twice a day and if they didn't eat they were forced. Also if a captive dies they are thrown overboard to prevent more illnesses. “The combination of disease, inadequate food, rebellion and punishment took a heavy toll on captives and crew alike. Surviving records suggest that until the 1750s one in five Africans on board ship died.”(liverpoolmuseums.org.uk). The British and French made laws stating that the number of people on board must be reduced and every ship must have a surgeon aboard. This was only made concerning crew members health not the captives. The surgeons onboard the ships were usually unqualified, but

These sadistic practices were needed to make sure that the slaves made it to their final destination alive, whether or not they were in the best shape. Although the women were not chained down like the men, they were horribly abused by the slave traders. The traders were allowed to rape them which led to the women committing suicide by jumping overboard and drowning. Rape was not necessary to scare those people into submission. Slave traders went beyond what was necessary to keep slaves. Although at some points the slaves fought back and rebelled, the treatment of the slaves on ships broke them down psychologically and physically. Robert Walsh reports that “The height sometimes between decks was only eighteen inches, so [they] could not turn round or even on their sides [because] the elevation [was] less than the breadth of their shoulders; and here they are usually chained to the decks by the neck and legs.” This made the conditions so bad that many of the enslaved people would try to “kill each other by strangulation or stabbing nails into each other’s heads in order to make more space for themselves” . Slave traders believed that these inhumane conditions were the appropriate way to transfer these people because they did not think that they were fellow human

Could there really be a bright side to slavery? How does christianity tie into slavery? In the two poems “To the First Slave Ship” by Lydia Huntley Sigourney and “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, there are a few similarities, but there are more differences. They both discuss topics that include slavery, religion, and hardships; however, they each have a very unique way of telling their story from their point of view.

The most crucial and painful stage of the slave transportation would be the time spent waiting on the African Coast. West Indies ships required at least 100 days to acquire slaves, free trader spent twice as long as West Indian Cargoes on African Coast.

The daily life of a slave in North Carolina was incredibly difficult. Hard workers, especially those in the field, played from sunrise until sundown. Even small kids and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. Slaves were generally granted a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July.