impacts of slavery in the caribbean

Slaves were treated like dangerous animals that were being loaded on a ship ready to be sent to a zoo. From the passage

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

The conditions on the Middle Passage were horrible. The space allotted to each slave was often too small to move the shoulders and the neck and legs were chained down. Many slaves died on the voyage and never made it out of the hull of the slave ships.

As requests for work developed, so did the cost of contracted laborers. Numerous landowners likewise felt debilitated by recently liberated workers interest for land. Landowners adhered to African slaves as a more productive and ever-renewable wellspring of work and the move from obligated laborers to racial servitude had started (3) Slavery was formerly enacted by the Virginians in 1661 (3). The English entry into the Atlantic slave trade gave the Southern planter an opportunity to purchase slaves more readily and more cheaply than before (4). The middle passage witnessed about 10-20% deaths during the uneasy voyage (5). The condition they found themselves in was dependent on their location and master. In chattel slavery, which mostly took place in the farmlands the primary obligation was to ensure the presence of effective cultivation (1). However, on the plantations, the slaves were closely monitored by “overseers”, who excessively maltreated them sometimes for personal gain (1). They tortured them because the owners had left it to them to watch over their progress, yet instead of encouraging them they rather brutalized them with words and

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

According to our textbook, the mortality rate on slave ships was varied quite a bit. It was usually only around 15%, but sometimes was so high that by the time the ships reached their intended destination, half or more of the slaves aboard the ship were dead (Roark, Johnson and Cohen, The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Growth of Slavery). According to Olaudah Equiano 's autobiography, this was due to a number of things. First, the living conditions on the slave ships was horrendous and as a result many slaves either got sick or contracted diseases. This was a big problem because European slave traders would pack the slaves into very small holds on the ship which resulted in overcrowding. This coupled with the hot weather these ships operated resulted in the illnesses and diseases spreading faster which caused many slaves to die quite rapidly. The second reason for the high mortality rate of slave ships was due to the fact that many slaves killed themselves trying to escape. Slaves frequently tried to escape the ship by jumping off the ship into the water. The problem was that many slaves did

Many slaves would die along the route from disease, starvation and/or the elements, their bodies dumped overboard for the sharks to eat. Africans who arrived at their destination and appeared healthy after being cleaned and oiled were sold and would most likely spend the rest of their life cultivating crops such as cotton or sugar cane.

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

Natives on the other hand were very difficult to enslave because many died due to diseases and lack of immunity to them and they were very knowledgeable with the surrounding terrain if they were to ever escape. To comply with the demand for cultivation of cash crops, a shipping route that imported Africans to the new world was the famous “horrendous six-to eight- week long ocean voyage known as the Middle Passage” (Goldfield, The American Jorney, 55). The European powers traded these slaves for guns, rum and other textiles. But in order to get these slaves, Africans kidnapped and traded other Africans for these resources. The African kingdom traded slaves who have done punishable crimes in their country for valuable resources that could help protect the kingdom from other rulers in Africa. Once the Africans were enslaved, they now begin their long journey to the New World on the compacted ships. Similar to indentured servants on their long voyage to the New World, the living conditions for the slaves on board were disgusting and unimaginable, they lived in their own filth struggling to barely survive the week long passages and slaves were often tightly packed below the deck. The slaves who did survive were then bought and sold just like cattle, often being separated from loved ones

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:

Many slaves died on their way to America, as in 1694, a slave trader wrote that many drowned themselves or starved themselves to death on purpose (4C1). The journey from Africa to America was very brutal for them, but they died as a release to “go home.” This showed how awful they believed the treatment would also be in

If the slaves survived the crossing, they expected an uncertain fate on the sugar cane fields of the Caribbean, the tobacco plantations of Virginia or the rice fields of South Carolina. When the slave ships reached the American colonies and bases, the slaves were refreshed by the ship's physician. The slaves were allotted with vitamin-rich food, hair and beard were cut, and the bodies were rubbed with palm oil. Wounds and physical blemishes were overpainted, a process called bleaching. There were basically three areas where slaves were sold. First, ritual slavery, that is, slaves used in agriculture and plantation management. Secondly, urban slavery, that is, slaves forced to work in the household, in crafts, in port and in the transport industry.

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

Ultimately, the journey from the old world to the new was one that was plagued by hardships and struggles for anyone that undertook it. Slaves and Servants alike suffered through illness and disease aboard these ships. Of course, things did not get much better for them once they arrived in the new world. Servants and Slaves both endured through brutal climates, deadly diseases, and harsh treatment by plantation owners.

In the documentary, Up from Slavery: 18th century Colonial America Under the Rule of the British Empire, the story of slavery begins on the coast of West Africa where thousands of African people are unceasingly enslaved and placed upon overcrowded ships on which they must endure the cruelest of conditions. Many did not live through the journey due to disease, malnutrition, or in some cases murder, such as the Zong Massacre where 132 slaves were thrown overboard in a monstrous act committed by the captain all for the sake of an insurance claim. Out of the 12 million slaves who endured the grueling Middle Passage, only about 5,000 were transported to the United States. However, by the time of the Civil War, that number increased to 4 million