I chose this research question because I found it strange that on the Voyage on the Alligator 38 slave children died and no slave adults. I found this information to really catch my attention. Some questions came to me while I was going over this data base, why would only children mortality occur during this journey? To begins my research I had to learn as much about this voyage as I could so I looked into the information. The vessel was called the Alligator from France. The owners were Colombel Besonguet Barabe. This voyage completed and the slaves were disembarked as Americans for original owners. The voyage originally began in Le Havre and the voyage ended in Le Havre. The voyage lasted forty six days. The mortality of slaves was 66.7% girls, and 33.3% boys. This means 100% of the slaves that died were children. I find this to be very heartbreaking that children slaves lost their lives at such a young age. My main concern when I found out this information was that I wanted to know why. …show more content…
What had caused all these young slave children to die? Maybe there had been a contagious disease that only could spread to other children on the ship. This also brought more questions to me. Were the mother and father of the slave children that had died been on the ship at the time? I also thought about if the parents had gotten to say goodbye to their kids on their death bed or had they died unexpectedly. I wondered if the children had planned to escape together or if they just got sick and passed away. There are so many explanations as to what could have happened to these slave
In the story of a Child Slave” by Anne Capeci and “The Fight Against Child Slavery”,by Charlotte Lytton the main focus is James Kofi Annan.Both authors discuss child slavery in Ghana.James Kofi Annan believes that child slavery is wrong and he was working hard to advocate for children's rights.
They "developed a common routine of removing their families to Newport, Rhode Island, during that portion of the year" (73). By doing this, they lowered the risk of people getting sick and dying. They made a discovery that malaria and yellow fever were what was causing so many people to get sick. However, the African slaves were unaffected to these diseases and could endure working in the fields without getting sick. This being another reason African slaves were prevalent in South Carolina, and how they became the
Equiano was the youngest of his brothers who enjoyed playing outside throwing javelins enjoying the normal life of a small child. At the beginning of the day, the elders would leave their children at home while they went out into the fields to work. While they were gone, some of the children would get together to play but always took precautions of potential kidnappers. Even with all these precautions, people were still seized from their homes and taken away. Equiano was home one day with his little sister tending to the everyday household needs when out of nowhere they were captured by a couple men who had gotten over the walls. They had no time to resist or scream for help before they found themselves bound, gagged, and being taken away. Equiano had no idea where these people were taking him and they didn’t stop once until nightfall where they stayed until dawn. He tells us about how they traveled for many days and nights not having any clue where they were going or when they would get there. Slaves traveled by land and by sea, but Equiano’s journey was by sea. He tells us how he was carried aboard and immediately chained to other African Americans that were already on the ship. Once the ship halted on land, Equiano along with many other slaves were sent to the merchant’s yard where they would be herded together and bought by the
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.
It is a difficult predicament to be in when one is held in captivity. The situation is that much worse if a child finds himself held as a slave. From a young age the child must endure the fact that he is owned and not free to live life on his own terms. A child slave is already denied his freedom and childhood in the sole fact that he is a slave. However, female child slaves had to endure yet another hardship that made life that much more difficult. Young African girls that were enslaved were sexually abused from an early age. Olaudah Equiano, in Interesting Narrative, tells of misfortunes that the female slaves met with at the hands of white men that he witnessed aboard a ship that belonged to his master, he writes: "I have even known them gratify their brutal passion with females not ten years old" (p. 483) Equia...
Slaves were then transported to the Americas on a journey called the middle passage which lasted about six weeks. These ships were very unsanitary and cramped often carrying three hundred slaves. Once onboard the ship, men and women were stripped naked and shackled two-by-two. They could either be packed loosely or tight. Either way the ship had terrible hygiene, often nowhere to go to the bathroom. Also the slaves were hardly given any food, so many of the slaves went hungry. These factors contributed to many suicide attempts while onboard.
In her essay, “Loopholes of Resistance,” Michelle Burnham argues that “Aunt Marthy’s garret does not offer a retreat from the oppressive conditions of slavery – as, one might argue, the communal life in Aunt Marthy’s house does – so much as it enacts a repetition of them…[Thus] Harriet Jacobs escapes reigning discourses in structures only in the very process of affirming them” (289). In order to support this, one must first agree that Aunt Marthy’s house provides a retreat from slavery. I do not. Burnham seems to view the life inside Aunt Marthy’s house as one outside of and apart from slavery where family structure can exist, the mind can find some rest, comfort can be given, and a sense of peace and humanity can be achieved. In contrast, Burnham views the garret as a physical embodiment of the horrors of slavery, a place where family can only dream about being together, the mind is subjected to psychological warfare, comfort is non-existent, and only the fear and apprehension of inhumanity can be found. It is true that Aunt Marthy’s house paints and entirely different, much less severe, picture of slavery than that of the garret, but still, it is a picture of slavery differing only in that it temporarily masks the harsh realities of slavery whereas the garret openly portrays them. The garret’s close proximity to the house is symbolic of the ever-lurking presence of slavery and its power to break down and destroy families and lives until there is nothing left. Throughout her novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs presents these and several other structures that suggest a possible retreat from slavery, may appear from the outside to provide such a retreat, but ideally never can. Among these structures are religion, literacy, family, self, and freedom.
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...
Firstly, looking at the experiences Douglass describes having while living on Captain Anthony’s plantation, there are several elements detailed that reflect the psychological stresses experienced by American slaves that are relevant to modern researchers. Primarily is the practice of breaking apart family units of slaves in Maryland before they are even twelve months old to which Douglass speculates this is done as a way to destroy the child’s natural affection for their mother. ...
On the second leg of this trade slaves were transported to the West Indies, this leg was called the middle passage. This part was horrible for the slaves. About 50% of all the slaves on one ship would not make it to the West Indies because of disease or brutal mistreatment. Hundreds of men, woman and children were cramped together for most of the journey, occasionally able move an almost decent amount.
After reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, it is clear to see the true horrors behind the entirety of slavery. It is one thing to learn about it from a textbook or to sit through a lecture, but it is a completely different experience to get an account of how grossly inhumane, frightening, and appalling slavery really was from someone who experienced the terrors first-hand. Reading this narrative provided extremely descriptive details of how slaves truly were treated. Douglass recounted the time where he had often:
Also, the ship’s crew often treated the Africans badly; they often whipped them because many of the people resisted and tried to escape from the cargo ship.
Scattered throughout the Southwest and into Northern Mexico, descendants of the Black Seminoles and Maroons are living in this modern world today. Over one hundred years ago, the U.S. government seemed determined to systematically eliminate the Native Americans and manipulate the descendants of the Black slaves. That imperialistic attitude allowed the policies of the U.S. government to treat groups of people with less respect and concern than they treated their livestock.
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
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...