The Difficult and Devastating Lives of African People

The Atlantic Slave Trade attempts to dehumanize enslaved Africans in numerous ways. First of all, from the sketch of a slave ship in the Middle Passage, it reveals that each slave has very limited space on the ship. Therefore, due to the harsh living condition on the ship, many slaves died in the Middle Passage. In addition, slaves were used as possessions, sold in market, “poked and prodded by strange white people” (Berlin 4). This intends to show “plantation owners’ wealth and power” (Berlin 2). Moreover, slaves might be “whipped, restrained, or maimed for any infraction, large or small ” (Henretta 100). Particularly, slave owners brandishing hot irons on slaves, to reveal their confined identity as slaves. Furthermore, the slave owners also

The taking of Africans and the transportation to the “New World” is called the Middle Passage. This was the most cruel and tortuous trip anyone could imagine. Africans would be forced to march up to one thousand miles to the coast line. There was a fifty percent survival on this march. Once on the ships the slaves would be bound together, made to lie side by side. Disease was rampant aboard the ships, because of the vomit, feces and death. If you were fortunate enough you would receive two meals a day which would include rice beans and maybe a piece of meat. Slaves were forced to exercise so they would appear to be healthy when

African Americans were plantation workers and were taken as slaves. As they were taken they had to go through the Middle Passage and sold at an auction. The Middle Passage is when slaves were being forced to go from Africa to the west Indies, and then being sold. The trip there was very harsh and unsanitary.

“The Slave Ship: A Human History” written by Marcus Rediker describes the horrifying experiences of Africans, and captains, and ship crewmen on their journey through the Middle Passage, the water way in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Americas. The use of slaves to cultivate crops in the Caribbean and America offered a great economy for the European countries by providing “free” labor and provided immense wealth for the Europeans. 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). African enslavement to the Americas is the most prominent reason for a complete shift in the

Before becoming a slave African Americans were first kidnapped from their homes. The kidnapping process was fast. There was hardly any chance given to scream or fight back against the kidnapper. Those that were kidnapped journey was “to travel, sometimes by land, sometimes by water, through different countries and various nations” (Pearsons, 2011, 149). The slaves transatlantic voyage was called the “middle passage” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 82). This middle passage was “a nightmare of death, disease, suicide, and sometimes mutiny” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 82). The waters near West Africa were known as the “white man’s grave” because so many white officers and crews of the slave ships died because of diseases and were tossed overboard (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 82). While the death toll of the crew was great in numbers. The deaths of the black slaves aboard was far greater. These slave ships were hotbeds for many diseases such as “scurvy, yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, small pox, measles and typhus” (Berkin, Cherny, Gormly, Miller, 2013, 83). The

In the Middle Passage, Africans were captured and sold by other Africans of their native land. They were then packed on a ship as if they were cargo. The conditions on that ship were unsanitary and of poor life quality, that many were struck with various illnesses. When many of the slaves aboard felt their growing despair, they attempted to resist their oppression by ending their lives so that they may mess with the slave business. This is evident in The Making of African American, pg. 63, where we read that:

The middle passage was truly a harsh and disgusting trip for the africans. However, if africans survived it would get a little better, they were sent to auction blocks where they were sold off like animals. They were then sent to the plantation to whom ever bought them. There, they worked and taught plantation owners how to farm and grow crops more efficiently.

The transition of being brought from Africa to America was called the middle passage since there what then were slaves started to understand that their status was going to be low. Their treatment since the moment they were in the ship was deplorable; they were punish to

The Africans captured during the Middle Passage encompassed a variety of ethnic groups that did not identify as a singular unit, but slavery in the Americas forced them to see themselves as such, and further isolated them from their individual identities and brought them closer to the institution of slavery. This is exemplified in the attempt to repatriate African-American slaves in 1787 in the United States. It was unsuccessful because of the fact that these African-Americans no longer belonged to simply one ethnic group/tribe/nation. Rather, they were a multifaceted composition of a wide array of various groups in Africa. The attempt at repatriation was disastrous because of the extensive cultural differences between the ‘returnees’ and the

The captives were treated during the Middle Passage like animals. The Europeans needed slaves to work for them, the Native Americans were dying from their diseases, but the people from Africa were immune. The Europeans kidnapped the Africans and forced them to work, with no choice they had to obey. The captives during the Middle Passage were from Africa, but during the passage they were treated like animals. The captives experienced shackles, restraints that looked like a animal or prisoners would be in. (Doc C) Not only that, but the Africans experienced starvation and diseases. They were so close together that diseases spread, as well as diseases, they didn’t even have food, added to this and all the dead bodies were thrown overboard.(Doc

One of the worst aspects of the Middle Passage was the living conditions in which the slaves had to live and their treatment by the crew. While slaves were given food and water, it was very infrequently, and if food was scarce, the crewmembers and slaveholders got preferential treatment over the slaves (Mannix & Cowley 6). Slaves resisted in several ways; they either refused to eat or committed suicide. They knew that they were being fed so they could make strong slaves, and some were too proud to be slaves, so they killed themselves

The Europeans acquired the slaves from the coasts of Africa trading with the chief tribes guns, tobacco, etc. in return the chief tribes uses the guns and goods to capture people from other tribes which they will then sell to the Europeans. Alexander Falconbridge describes the way she was captured “I was likewise told by a Negro woman that as she was on her return home, one evening, from some neighbors, to whom she had been making a visit by invitation, she was kidnapped; and notwithstanding she was big with child, sold for a slave. This transaction happened a considerable way up the country, and she had passed through the hands of several purchasers before she reached the ship”(Falconbridge, “A slave Ship”). The voyage from Africa to Europe was known as the middle passage. The treatments of slaves in the middle passage were horrific, with many men and women packed into a small space. The slaves were underfeed and they were killed with diseases contracted from the

The trade of Africans was part of Triangular trade, from Europe to Africa, Africa to the Americas, and the Americas back to Europe. The journey from Africa across the Atlantic was known as the Middle Passage. For many months, enslaved Africans were treated terribly on the voyage. Slaves were packed on top of each other into the bottom of the ship. African men wore iron chains around their wrists and legs and had little room to move. The chains and cuffs prevented revolts and escapes. Revolting slaves would be shot or drowned. Women and children were sometimes

Now, there are several salient points that can be made about Symoné’s comments. Symoné’s concern with her inability to accurately trace her African roots is reminiscent of the Pan-Africanist point of view. In this interview, Raven is privileging the Pan- African point of view, deciding that her blackness cannot be validated unless she can show a clear connection to Africa. The Pan-Africanist point of view came about during the time of 18th century slave revolts and continued throughout the 19th century abolitionist movements and the rise of new antisystemic movements in the 1960s (Lao-Montes 311).

In Africa, it is a known fact that many people are suffering from a variety of diseases. Currently, the most common diseases is HIVs/AIDs, which is especially a problem in South-Africa. Almost 68 percent of the people suffering from diseases have HIVs/AIDs. It was recorded that out of 58.03 million people who died globally in 2005, 10.9 million were from Africa. And also that almost 50% the population in Africa lack of access to essential medicines, meaning that people are suffering and dying from the simple lack of materials. While more than 70 percent of HIV infection worldwide is through heterosexual sex, in sub-Saharan Africa the percentage is higher (Jackson 2002). Another way that HIV is transmitted is HIV-infected mother to her