What Was The Middle Passage

The Middle Passage was the name for the route across the Atlantic Ocean, where African people had been captured and were taken as slaves to the Americas in the 1500s. It lasted for more than 400 years. The slaves were taken to work in sugar, coffee and cotton plantations. This essay is about the living conditions that the slaves suffered on the journey, the food they were given, the punishments that were used to control them, and the death and diseases on the boats.

There were two types of ways that captains of slave ships could pack their ‘cargo’. One of them was called ‘loose packing’, where the captain would take fewer slaves than he could actually fit into the ship, to diminish the disease and deaths. The other way to pack the slaves
was ‘tight packing’, where the boat crew would jam all the slaves they could possibly carry in the hold. Sometimes they were chained ankle to wrist with almost no space to move. Many of the slaves would not reach the Americas and die on the ships. They would die mostly of sicknesses or suicide. The idea of tight packing was that the more slaves the slave traders took, the more money they would make from the journey. Only some slave traders would provide a bucket for the slaves to go toilet and not every slave had bucket close to them. They also were severely restrained by shackles around ankles and wrists, so they could not move to go to the toilet. Occasionally a sailor would go down to wash the slaves. The wash would be nothing more than a quick splash of water.

When it came to feeding the slaves, the slave traders had a choice.
Some tried to buy as little food as possible, believing that it was a waste of money, but other boat captains thought that healthy slaves would be worth more, and be sold easier. That would cover the cost of extra food the slaves would be fed. Food for slaves included yams, corn, rice, beans and palm oil. These foods were used because they were cheap and could be stored for a long time. When feeding the slaves they would be taken up on the deck under heavy guard. Many slaves were so afraid or torn from their families that they committed suicide. One of the ways to commit suicide was to refuse food and starve. But the captains wanted as much of their cargo to reach the Americas. So they would use tools such as the speculum orum to force feed the slaves so they wouldn't die. This instrument would be forced into the slave’s mouth so food could be forced
in.

Speculum Orum
If the slaves did something wrong there would be many different kinds of painful punishment.
If the slaves refused to eat the sailors would beat them and torture them with many different devices such as thumb screws, and if that didn't work they would brutally force-feed them, sometimes breaking their teeth. On the boats, if the slaves became sick or were problematic, they would be dumped overboard. When slaves were taken to the plantations in the Americas, they would be branded with hot irons, and if they tried to escape they were whipped or or executed.

Slaves suffered a variety of diseases that often led to death, on the boats across the Atlantic and also on the plantations. There were European diseases they had not been exposed to before, and there were diseases they got from inhumane conditions on the journey and harsh working conditions in the Americas. 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
children.

In conclusion, the conditions for a slave on board the Middle Passage should not even be the conditions given to an animal. Slaves were underfed, they were not given good hygiene or living conditions, and they were brutally punished with whips and shackles. Many died from diseases, from execution, or from suicide. The Atlantic Slave Trade was an injustice to millions of African people for over 400 years.