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Comparison between Arab slave trade and European slave trade
Slave trade across the Atlantic
Slave trade across the Atlantic
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A popular literature has painted this part of the slave experience as uniquely evil and inherently more inhuman that any of the others horrors of the slave life(Klein 130). Slaves were taken from their homes and was forcibly traded.One cannot, of course, mention the Middle Passage without eliciting the horrors of tightly packed men, women and children chained together, to keep them from rebelling, or from choosing the suicidal fate of jumping overboard. The mortality of captives in Africa, therefore, included not only losses among those headed for export at the Atlantic coast but the additional losses among those destined for export to Orient among those captured and transported to serve African masters(Engerman and Inkori 117). The death that the slaves went through while they were being shipped was crucial and insane. It shows how the Middle Passage was the most terrifying journey for the slaves. The terror of the slaves in the manner in which they was carried and the mortality that they suffered, proves how the slaves was treated ruthlessly during the Middle Passage. Klein indicates the slavers carried 1.6 slaves per registered ship’s ton, with 5 to 7 square feet of deck area given to each slave. Most of the ships were outfitted with partial decks and platforms in the space below, the main deck and above the second or between the deck (Klein 132).The ships were different lengths and could hold only a certain amount of weight. The Brooks weighed 300 tons, and it held about 609 slaves. This arrangement gives a deck estimate at over 3,000 square feet, which provided an average of just under 7 square feet per slave. The LaVigilante is shown at 240 tons with 347 slaves and probably marks the lowest bound estimate with a deck area that results in 5.6 square feet per slave(Klein 133). Most slaves were crammed in into their designed spaces like loaves of bread on a shelf, with an average of six to seven square feet and rarely more than two or three feet of head space (Postma 23). Many slaves who, were in their nakedness, crouched on the lower back. Men slaves were generally shackled two by two , making movement extremely difficult, and small groups were strung together by longer chains to take them to the upper deck for meals and fresh air. Women and children were generally confined to a separate deck space or in cabins and allowed greater mobility(Postma 23).
The killings made by the slaves are saddening, too. Mutilating the whites and leaving their bodies lying is inhumane. It is such a shocking story. This book was meant to teach the reader on the inhumanity of slavery. It also gives us the image of what happened during the past years when slavery was practised.
The Middle Passage was a voyage that brought enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to North America and the West Indies. Olaudah Equiano was born around year 1745 in Guinea which is now Nigeria. He was sold into slavery while he was still a child and he worked in America and in the West Indies. He bought his own freedom and he stayed in England. He described his life as a slave in the Middle Passage as terrible. He was whipped after he refused his masters who offered him eatables. He said he wasn't hungry, because of the bad smell on the ship cause of diseases and sick slaves. He saw masters whipping slaves if they didn't obey them. And as for "The Amistad", slaves had taken revenge and started killing their white masters from the La Amistad ship. They were whipped and they suffered a lot. And were all chained together, so no one can escape. They don't have much air going on the ship for there was a lot of slaves and there is no much air to breath for all of them, they were all on the low deck of the ship. The dreadful Middle Passage had caused all the slaves suffered to death.
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
People during the Middle Passage experienced many things. They experienced hygiene problems and and had some important factors to justify for the successive waves of Africans coming to America to be slaves. “Even the whites had difficulty with these things (Hygiene).” The whites were so worried about the Africans they didn’t have time to keep themselves clean. “Brazil became the most expressive model of the process carried out by the Portuguese as it melted Indian, white, and black in a complex mix of ethnicities and cultures.” People where having a hard time keeping care of themselves so they had a hard time taking care of themselves and their family if they had one. If the slaves had a choice to get on the boat to end their
All were subject to harsh circumstances and the relentless fears of shipwreck and disease outbreaks. It took as long as five to twelve weeks, depending on the weather circumstances and point of departure. The captain and the crew workers treated the slaves like wild animals, giving them barely enough food to survive and leaving them to suffer with lice, fleas, and rats, which led to many diseases (“Middle Passage”). The records stated that about two –thirds of the fatalities were caused by malaria, yellow fever, and intestinal disorders (Postma 25). The enslaved Africans were linked with heavy iron chains around their hands and feet with barely enough room to lie down (Howarth). Constant odors of urine, vomit...
The Middle Passage was a long voyage that African Americans endured just to get sold into slavery when the voyage was done. According to ushistory.org African Americans in slave ships were fed twice a day, and holes were cut in the deck to allow slaves to breath, but these holes were closed in bad weather such as storms, regardless of the attempts to keep the African Americans Alive and well most of them died of lack of water, food, and air. According to (pbs.org) slaves were stuffed between decks in spaces too low to stand, the heat was unbearable, and the air almost unbreathable. The women were used sexually, and the men were chained in pairs, slave ships were very crowded for the slaves, and slaves were forced to lie in their backs with their heads in between the legs of others, slaves would have to lie in each others feces,urine, and maybe even blood. In these slave ships diseases would spread very quickly, and sick slaves would of usually been thrown overboard to prevent an epidemic. Upon reaching the end of the voyage the remaining slaves that survived were cleaned, and checked by a doctor to see if they would make a good price at the ports, those slaves that were declared unfit to be so...
Examination into the true heart of experience and meaning, Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage looks at the structures of identity and the total transformation of the self. The novel talks about the hidden assumptions of human and literary identity and brings to view the real problems of these assumptions through different ideas of allusion and appropriation. As the novel tells Rutherford Calhoun’s transformation of un-awareness allows him to cross “the sea of suffering” (209) making him forget who he really is. The novel brings forth the roots of human “being” and the true complications and troubles of African American experiences. Stuck between posed questions of identity, the abstract body is able to provide important insight into the methods and meanings in Middle Passage.
The slaves were not afforded the luxury the white people enjoyed that was the universal belief that one’s life has value simply because they are human; the white oppressors did not see the enslaved Africans as humans, therefore they did not afford them the inherent value bestowed upon human life. The practices conducted aboard the slave ships coincided with the believe that the Africans were nothing but cargo or livestock. Hine describes the practice of “tight packing” writing, “most captains were “tight packers,” who would squeeze human beings together in hope that large numbers would offset increased deaths.” She continues in a subsequent passage claiming, “one third of the Africans subjected to the trade perished between their capture and their embarkation on a slave ship” (Hine, 2012). There is no clearer indication that the white slavers felt the lives of the enslaved Africans were worthless than the blatant disregard for slave mortality aboard the ships. The captors attempted to keep the enslaved alive simply in order to receive monetary recompense, however, Hine’s describes slavers as being exceptionally cruel to enslaved Africans aboard ships despite the possible monetary consequences. Finally, Hine describes how the amount of value placed on an enslaved African’s life and health was directly proportional to the amount of money that slave was worth, when describing the experience of women aboard slave ships. Hine writes, “because the women were less valuable commodities, crew members felt they had license to abuse them sexually” (Hine, 2012). This passage describes how different enslaved Africans faced different amounts of cruelty and abuse based on the assumed price this person was worth. Not only were all the enslaved black people seen as less than human, some people were
Often slaves were traded like livestock and forced to relocate from their familiar to the unknown. Female slaves were often raped by their male owners. Any offspring from such encounters suffered additionally due to resentment from the owner’s wife and were also often forced to relocate. Food and clothing were meagerly provided. Slave labor was incessant. Abuse and brutality were rampant. Beatings and whippings were common place. Numerous slave killings were never brought to justice. Fear and hopelessness knew no bounds. In this environment of both physical and mental control, slaves were made to fear for their own safety too much to attempt to stop the brutality. Through this dehumanization, they became virtual participants in the
The typical life of an indentured servant was not a convenient one. Their journeys to the Americas were miserable. The servants were packed into large ships carrying thousands of people as well as, tools, food, etc. Not only were the people densely packed, there were various diseases flooding the ships, and many people would die from them. “I witnessed . . .
Exhausted and undernourished by the time they boarded the large oceangoing vessels, the captives were placed in dark and crowded holds. Most had been poked and prodded by slave traders, and some had been branded to ensure that a trader received the exact individuals he had purchased. Once in the hold, they might wait for weeks before the ship finally set sail. By that time, the foul-smelling and crowded hold became a nightmare of disease and despair. There was never sufficient food or fresh water for the captives, and women especially were subject to sexual abuse and rape by crew members. Many captives could not communicate with each other since they spoke different languages, and none of them knew exactly where they were going or what would happen when
European slavers altered the way that different African people viewed one another and themselves. The book by Miguel Barnet, Biography of a Runaway Slave is a strong account that can be used to explore how Africans changed their perception of each other, and how this change influenced the lives of Africans in the Americas.
In July 1839, fifty-four African captives boarded the Amistad and head to the Americas. During their journey, they were able to break free of their chains and take over the ship. Despite their best efforts to sail back to Africa, they were once again captured and put on trial in the United States. Due to the current progress of the abolishment of slave trafficking, all that were captured on the Amistad were set free. However, this was not the fortune of millions of slaves both before and after the Amistad. Thousands of slaves died before making it to the Americas. Due to the cruelty and sanitation issues of the ship, those who did survive the grueling journey had to do so in unlivable conditions. The victims of the Middle Passage suffered ruthless treatment throughout their journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
conditions aboard ship were dreadful. The maximum number of slaves was jammed into the hull, chained to forestall revolts or suicides by drowning. Food, ventilation, light, and sanitatio...
The Transatlantic slave trade is arguably one of the cruelest aspects of slavery. Slave trading began when people were plucked from their homes and villages to be shipped abroad to work for the rest of their lives. This process was gruesome, inhumane, and undoubtedly dangerous. Rafe Blaufarb and Liz Clarke, co-authors of Inhuman Traffick wrote, “Over time, the average rate of mortality fell, from 25 percent in the early years of the trade to 14 percent in the eighteenth century” (15). Slaves rebelled against their oppressors by refusing to dance, and leading armed rebellions which gave them agency in their situations which otherwise had been removed. When considering agency, victimhood plays an equal role in the battle for equality. An example of victimhood and agency functioning equally is in Neirsée affair.