During the time of the Middle Passage, the people on the various slave ships suffered constantly because of sickness, cruelty to the Africans, and lack of food and water. I didn’t matter what race they were because they were all stuck on the same boat, with the same diseases going around. The conditions of the boat they were staying on were unacceptable. There was blood and mucus all over the floor boards from the disease called the flux, which caused a lot of slaves to catch the flux as well and die off (Document C). A slave Ship Doctor named Alexander Falconbridge said that the place where the slaves stayed “resembled a slaughter house” and coming from a white doctor, this means a lot because he was sticking up fro the slaves (Document C).…
People in power often dictate recordings of history, but the Atlantic slave trade found an exception to this pattern. Documents from both enslavers and enslaved of this time regarding management of captives provide an insight on the treatment of slaves in the middle passage. Data from both parties clearly illustrates slave trading as a massive industry, and one where enslavers valued efficiency over the well-being of captives to garner the maximum possible profit. Conditions illustrated in these primary documents two and three demonstrate the extremely poor quality of life which slaves faced at the hands of clearly apathetic enslavers within the middle passage.…
Many of the slaves basic needs were unmet. Despit the change in status, the black communities on the sea islands had little to eat and were still badly clothed…
The trek to the coast is considered to be more brutal than the voyages across the Middle Passage (“The Abolition of British Slavery”). Slaves were forced to walk to European coastal ports up to 1000 miles away while being shackled together and anyone who became sick or too weak would be left to die. At port cities, slaves were kept in dungeons until they were transported onto the ships which could take upwards to a year (“The African Slave Trade”). It is estimated that about 9 to 11 million slaves died before being taken out of Africa (“How Many People Were Taken From Africa?”). The life of a slave was really bad at this point and it only got worse. The Middle Passage is known to the worst part of the journey to the Americas. It is also estimated that between one to two million slaves died on the Middle Passage. Slaves were packed so tightly into the cargo-hold that they had to lie in each other’s feces and urine (“The African Slave Trade”). Smallpox and yellow fever spread like wildfire because of the unsanitary conditions (“The African Slave Trade”). Because of theses conditions, 12% of slaves that were sent away from Africa died during the voyages (“Facts About The Slave Trade”). Africa was not a nice place to live during this time and that affected Africa as a whole in the long…
With this, labor and more land is needed, so in 1619, 20 African slaves were sold at auction. From 1619-1700, the African slave population begins to grow and by 1700, 14% of the Virginia population is enslaved. The slaves were emigrated from Africa to the Americas on what is called a slave ship. The slaves were packed closely together to the point where there was no moving room for anyone. (Doc D.) The ships had a terrible smell because of this. Diseases and sicknesses were easily spread because of how close they were to one another. Often times, on the way over, man Africans would die on the slave ship. They died of malnutrition, starvation, diseases, and…
They suffered from chronic unemployment, poor sanitation, inadequate diets and some even went without the benefit or rudiments of adequate hygiene. They suffered from a host of diseases including tuberculosis, syphilis, hookworms, pellagra, rickets, rotten teeth, and lower life spans than whites.…
One of the most daunting difficulties aboard was the question of how to keep the slaves alive so that they could be sold upon arrival in America. Living conditions were detestable and could easily be classified as torture for the Africans in the pits of the ships. Slaves were chained and shackled together for the duration of the voyage. Slaves spent most of their time below deck on an area covered with filth, mold, and body fluids. They slept, chained together, exceedingly close to the person next to them with no room for any movement.…
During the Colonial Era numerous, lethal diseases were transferred around among the Europeans and Native Americans. These diseases killed countless people.…
History is host to a seemingly countless number of atrocities. Our knowledge of these events is limited to the records left behind for historians to study. One of history’s greatest recorded atrocities is the transatlantic slave trade that occurred from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century. The incredible amount of records that exist about the transatlantic slave trade provides great insight into its participants, functionality, and eventual end.…
The Trans-atlantic slave trade also known as the “triangular Trade” was born out of an emerging global trade network which joined Europe, Africa, and the Americas ships full of european goods travelled to Africa, via America and then back to europe with finished goods.…
The transatlantic slave trade was the largest horrific forced migration of Africans from their homelands to western hemisphere from 15th to 19th Century. Over twelve million men, women and children became the victim of this extreme exploitation. It was one of the terrific assaults in the human history which greatly influenced Africa’s Political and economic state. The purpose of the slave trade was to obtain profit and goods from European traders .Europeans used the slaves for plantations in Americas and also imported them to Brazil.…
Many diseases happened because the slaves were not fed properly. Some of these fatal sickness included diarrhea, dysentery, scurvy and whooping cough. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History says the infant and early childhood death rate of slaves was twice that of white infants and…
Throughout 200 years the Atlantic slave trade was removing millions of Africans out of their daily routine life in their home continent of Africa and taking them in the the new world; North America. Africans on board the slave vessels weren't just taking straight to America; they had a long voyage ahead of them. Taking one of 3 routes; 2 different triangular routes or the middle passage; with all horrible conditions surrounding them, Africans were not approving toward. Many got deadly diseases; htey have not been exposed or built up immunity to; or committed suicide by jumping overboard. The causes and effects of African slavery during the Atlantic slave trade period proved it was a very tragic time in history for Africans in the new world.…
Britain had become the largest exporter of African slaves to the Americas by the 18th century. By the start of the 19th century more than half of the slaves taken from the West Coast of Africa had been transported across the Atlantic Ocean by British ships. Although Britain was one of the key investors in the slave institution it became the first major European country to leave the trans- Atlantic slave trade and make it illegal in 1807. The discovery of the Americas at the end of the 15th century opened up new economic incentives that led to the greatest transportation of human capital in the form of slaves. From about 1500 to the end of the 1800’s millions of slaves from Africa were taken to the Americas.…
BALLO Hermine – Richard B. Allen, “Satisfying the Want for Labouring People: European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500-1850” - 02/27/2016…