Personal Narrative: The Slave Trade

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The slave trade is an immense business, these days everyone wants their own slave to take care of the work they don’t want to do. These Africans that are captured are sold to the highest bidder. In this business nothing is more important than a sailor. The sailor is what makes the ship go so that the Africans can be taken across the ocean, to be put up for auction. I was just signed on to this crew recently, in fact this is my first trip across the Atlantic Ocean. We just came into port, and the captain ordered me and a few other deck hands to make sure that the hold was cleared and cleaned before the cargo arrived. For the most part, it was simple work, clear out some barrels, scrub the floor clean, but the thing I noticed most was the lingering …show more content…

The other day I brought one up for air, and he made a run for it! He jumped off the edge, got through the netting, and was gone. After that another one thought it was a good idea to follow suit, and we lost another perfectly healthy slave. Of course the captain put it all on me, so after that I had to put them on a leash so they won’t get too far away. This carried on for a while, and then I brought this kid up who seemed to be fascinated with the quadrant that we used to help navigate, so a crewman noticed, and decided to feed that curiosity by showing it to him. Finally, we got done with the voyage and came into port. The captain had us march them out for the buyers to get interested in the merchandise. We got a slave on board after that to go and explain what was happening to these slaves, and that they were wanted for free labor. Finally, the auction came, and we marched them up to the stand for all these white men to bid for each, one by one. But then, it was all over, we all got our pay, and the captain offered to hire me on again for a much higher

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