The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano

The start of 400 years of slavery began in 1441 when 12 slaves were brought over from Africa. Most African people hadn't even seen a white man until they were enslaved by one. People in the North were unaware of the treatment of slaves until the 1830s when a powerful movement was created. The abolitionist movement was driven to abolish slavery after seeing things like posters and slave narratives that exposed the kidnapping of slaves, treatment on the ship, and the advertisement and selling of slaves.

Most of the time, Africans were kidnapped by other Africans and sold to white people for items they didn't have in their country. Children often felt safe enough to go with the other Africans because they had the same skin color as them. In "Thoughts
and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery: Slave Coffle" Cugoano says "when bedtime came, we were separated into different houses with different people." Slaves were constantly being separated into different groups and split apart from their families. The separation caused many slaves to become depressed, Cugoano talks about how he " refuse to eat or drink for whole days together". After days of traveling they would arrive in a town where they would eventually be sold off. Cugoano says " I saw several white people, which made me afraid they would eat me, according to our notion as children in the inland parts of the country". When people disappeared from Africa the only explanation they could come up with was that they are being eaten by the white men. Cugoano's fear truly sets in when he sees his "miserable countryman chained two and two, some handcuffed, and some with their hands tied behind". African people were handcuffed before they even got off of their own land. Cugoano, at the age of 13, was traded for "A gun, a piece of cloth, and some lead". After Africans were traded they would be forced into a slave ship.
The journey to America could take up to eight weeks. In "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano," Equiano says "the closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration" (page 45). The ships used to transport slaves were over packed and did not have proper ventilation. The slaves were treated as if they were livestock or cargo instead of actual human beings. The documentary "The Middle Passage" stated that slave ships "resembled a slaughter house". Many ships began to follow slave ships because of the amount of dead bodies that were constantly being thrown overboard. There were plenty of times when slaves would willingly jump overboard because they preferred death over slavery. The psychological impact was the biggest challenge slaves faced, "these people were scared to death and stripped of their dignity", "The middle passage." Slaves were chained up and thrown in the cargo area of a ship, they were not given proper nutrition and the air was filled with disease. The treatment slaves received on ships was barbaric and
unacceptable.

Posters with the inventory of slave ships would be hung up in areas with large amounts of traffic. The "slave poster" advertises "Thirty-nine men, fifteen boys, twenty-four women, and sixteen girls" making sure to include that their bodies are in "prime and healthy" condition.