In modern time, traveling by boat is very much easy, and most people prefer it now for vacations and long trips through the sea.What most of us would recognize and identify this as a cruz. Though we have evolved, traveling by boat wasn't always so pleasant for many in the past. In the early 10th century when the European’s started traveling to the America, it was a struggle to travel by boat. It was hard to survive the voyage over seas for a several reasons according to Gottlieb Mittelberger. In letter written by Mittelberger ,The Passage of Indentured Servants, it explains the many hardships these people endured while aboard these large sea-vessels. For one, he explains how space is very limited and tight. With as many as 600 souls Mittelberger explains, there is only a two by four foot space for each person to rest. On top of that they had to make space for all the necessities that would be used during the …show more content…
It all depended on how much wind they got to sail the boat. With very little wind these trips could take up to 4 weeks, and when given the luck of heavy wind 6-8 days. This also depended on where they were headed, trips to Philadelphia could take up to a long 12 weeks. So wind made a very big impact on whether or not people would see land or not, and how long it would take before they seen it. Once on board people faced many obstacles with sickness and other extremities such as: misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth rot, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, and really bad lice. With all of these factors in mind, it was only logical that not many of these people made it through the whole voyage. Children from ages 1-7 would pass away, and their parents would throw them over board with fear of getting others sick, along with the fact there was no proper place to burry
For starters, there was many illnesses and diseases that went around multiple times in Jamestown’s history. In Document E, it says between August and October of 1607 “Summer sickness kills half the colonist”. This supports my claim because half of the original
During the 1600’s people began to look for different types of work in the new world. As cash crops, such as tobacco, indigo, and rice, were growing in the South, there became a need for labor. This got the attention of convicts, debtors, and other people looking for new opportunities and money. Indentured servitude was vastly growing during the 17th and 18th centuries. Approximatively 10 million men, women, and children were moved to the new world. Women during this time found themselves being sold to men for these cash crops. A commonly used term during this time for these women was tobacco brides. Almost 7.7 million of the slaves captured and moved to the new world were African Americans. Slaves and indentured servants had it rough for
Although a practice not viewed positively by all, slavery, a least in this document, could be justified in the eyes of slavers.
In 1997 a movie called Amistad depicted the true story of a group of Africans that were taken from their families and forced into slavery. Although the movie was heavily criticized for it's inaccurate tale of the terrible ordeal, it gave the story world-renowned attention. The real story had more drama and tearjerker parts then the movie did. If the movie ever gets remade, hopefully this time it follows the facts exactly.
At the entrance to the Lower Bay of New York Harbor, the immigrants were inspected for contagious diseases like, smallpox, yellow fever, and measles. After which they were filed to the reception area. They had to climb three floors of stairs as medical officers watched them for signs of lameness, shortness of breath, heart conditions and mental conditions.
The role of an indentured servant in the 1700s was not a glamorous one. They came to the New World knowing that, for a time, they would be slaves for someone they did not know and the risk of disease and death was high, but the opportunity that laid ahead of them after their time of servitude was worth everything to these settlers of the New World. They came to America for the same reasons as all of the other settlers. Religious freedom, land, wealth, and a new start were motives for both settlers and indentured servants but the one thing separating most settlers from the indentured servants was that they could afford their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Indentured servants couldn’t buy their ticket to the New World, but that didn’t stop
America at this time consisted of overland travel and ocean travel. The journey all the way across the continent by land was risky and extremely difficult. It consisted of passing over mountains, plains, rivers and deserts. It also was a very timely process. In ocean travel, each ship would have to take the route around Cape Horn at the bottom of South America. This timely trip would have an average time of six months. They could also cross the Isthmus of Panama and risk getting yellow fever and other diseases.
The men could have got diseases from the water that they drank. The position of the settlement was not ideal, although it was very good military position. The water that the settlers drank was out of the river, but the water around the island was stagnant, it didn't move. All the sewage from the island was poured straight into the river, this meant that the men were drinking raw sewage. A lot of men died of 'Bloody Flux' and typhoid, these are typical sewage related diseases. The colonists knew about the risks of drinking the water, but they had no choice, they had to drink something.
"The journey normally was no more than a ten minute episode but we were pushed hither and thither by the wind tossed waves. I clung to the sides as the little vessel was swept downstream… after a full three quarters of an hour we reached the shore" - Shadrax Fox, 1704
The topic of indentured servitude isn’t exactly a hot one in terms of popular historical details, but it’s certainly one that tends to be neglected and overlooked when we glimpse into the past and discuss the people who helped build this country from the ground up. Many of these indentured servants suffered during the journey over and the handful that survived were treated poorly once they actually began to work. In Richard Frethorne’s case, the better opportunity he had looked forward to in America is stunted by the fact that his new lifestyle is arduous and grueling, which is also sympathized by Richard Hofstadter in his essay on the details of indentured servitude.
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 . . .
In addition, Africans had to endure the terrible heat, there was little or no food provided. They were subjected to diseases that quickly spread among slaves, and many died due to unsanitary conditions. Most of the time, the sick were thrown overboard to avoid infecting others. One writer describes the terrible conditions that African slaves had to endure, “In the voyage, one of every three Africans died from dysentery, smallpox, or suffocation and was thrown overboard to the sharks, who reportedly followed the slave ships from the coast of Africa all the way to the New World.”
Travel by land and water was both tedious and expensive. Transporting one ton of goods across states would cost around 100 dollars or 1,265 dollars in today’s money. In the 1790s, land routes connecting the east coast and the farther western regions of the United States were undeveloped. Along with this, when weather conditions were poor land routes could not support any sort of dependable shipping by wagon, or even travel by horseback. Natural waterways provided the most dependable method of transport west of Albany. Even travel by waterway in this time period was inconvenient because these water routes were unreliable due to shallow water and raging rapids.
The earliest ocean-going vessels were not primarily concerned with passengers, but rather with the cargo that they could carry. Black Ball Line in New York in 1818, was the first shipping company to offer
The struggle for survival by mankind can be found in many different settings. It can be seen on a battlefield, a hospital room or at sea as related in “The Open Boat”, written in 1897 by Stephen Crane. The story is based on his actual experiences when he survived the sinking of the SS Commodore off the coast of Florida in early 1897. “The Open Boat” is Stephen Crane’s account of life and death at sea told through the use of themes and devices to emphasize the indifference of nature to man’s struggles and the development of mankind’s compassion.