Middle Passage
Luada Worrell
Professor Taylor-Perez
English 111
7 March 2013
The Middle Passage
The idea of brutal practices of human bondage is hard to entirely understand. The emotions involved in keeping a human captive are beyond understanding. It’s dehumanizing, sickening, and painful to understand how Africans were enslaved from their homelands. Packed side by side, shoulder to shoulder under planks, and no room to breathe or move, lay the African slaves. The inhumane treatment of the slaves consisted of brutal beatings, starvation and sexual assault on the women. In addition, they were sold and were robbed of their independence dignity during the long hard voyage of the Middle Passage.
The Middle Passage was a harsh slave trade of millions of Africans that was literally stolen away from their native lands, leaving behind their families, work, heritage, and everything that was familiar to them. Africans were robbed of their independence, humanness and were reduced to cargo, commodities among continents, including the trading of black men, women, and children who were treated like property. Europeans were not use to the harsh climate of Africa as a result of the extremely warm tropical climate it was difficult the Europeans to work. It seemed like the Africans would be the perfect solution to the European’s problems due to the fact that the Africans were used to the tropical climate and immune to these diseases, had experiences in agriculture, and were already a market for Europeans. This introduced the slave trade to North America.
There had always been slavery in Africa amongst their own people, men from different tribes/villages would raid other villages to kidnap the women to use them for the Europeans own pleasures and use the men as slaves. Learning they could actually profit from this activity, this made the job of getting slaves very easy for the Europeans.
Slaves acquired through raids, transported to the seaports where they were held prisoner in forts
Professor Taylor-Perez
English 111
7 March 2013
The Middle Passage
The idea of brutal practices of human bondage is hard to entirely understand. The emotions involved in keeping a human captive are beyond understanding. It’s dehumanizing, sickening, and painful to understand how Africans were enslaved from their homelands. Packed side by side, shoulder to shoulder under planks, and no room to breathe or move, lay the African slaves. The inhumane treatment of the slaves consisted of brutal beatings, starvation and sexual assault on the women. In addition, they were sold and were robbed of their independence dignity during the long hard voyage of the Middle Passage.
The Middle Passage was a harsh slave trade of millions of Africans that was literally stolen away from their native lands, leaving behind their families, work, heritage, and everything that was familiar to them. Africans were robbed of their independence, humanness and were reduced to cargo, commodities among continents, including the trading of black men, women, and children who were treated like property. Europeans were not use to the harsh climate of Africa as a result of the extremely warm tropical climate it was difficult the Europeans to work. It seemed like the Africans would be the perfect solution to the European’s problems due to the fact that the Africans were used to the tropical climate and immune to these diseases, had experiences in agriculture, and were already a market for Europeans. This introduced the slave trade to North America.
There had always been slavery in Africa amongst their own people, men from different tribes/villages would raid other villages to kidnap the women to use them for the Europeans own pleasures and use the men as slaves. Learning they could actually profit from this activity, this made the job of getting slaves very easy for the Europeans.
Slaves acquired through raids, transported to the seaports where they were held prisoner in forts