from about 1525 to 1866 twelve and a
half million Africans were taken from
their homeland and forcibly transported
across the Atlantic a journey that
approximately 2 million of them would
not survive by the turn of the 18th
century European merchants were building
vessels capable of transporting hundreds
of enslaved people per journey these
ships had extra port holes for
ventilation weapons mounted on deck in
case of rebellion and additional
compartments added below deck to take on
more human cargo before boarding the
ships at African port cities enslaved
people were stripped of their clothing
and remaining possessions and have their
heads forcibly shaved during boarding
which could take weeks or even months
enslaved people lived on the deck of the
ship and a temporary wooden house
constructed by the crew the crew also
installed netting around the deck of the
ship designed to catch those enslaved
who might act for death over forced
servitude once moved below deck and
slave people would find themselves
stuffed into compartments with ceilings
as low as four and a half feet where
they would spend most of their voyage
they were segregated by gender and age
adult men were kept separately in
shackled in pairs women usually left
Unchained and their designated
compartment and children often free to
move about the ship there were no
sanitary facilities of any kind and
slave people were forced to relieve
themselves where they sat creating
hellish conditions when combined with
the heat and lack of ventilation below
deck disease was rampant dysentery
malaria yellow fever smallpox measles
and influenza ravaged the enslaved and
crew members alike
the enslaved people generally spent
about eight hours a day above deck but
we're still separated by gender with a
barre kata a reinforced wall that could
be used to protect crew members in case
of a revolt enslaved people were also
subject to forced exercise which
sometimes included dance and song for
the entertainment of the crew enslaved
captives deemed disobedient or tortured
and beaten usually with with the
especially cruel cat-o'-nine-tails
a tool designed to inflict maximum pain
enslaved people who refused to eat their
typical meal of rice and beans were
forced to do so sometimes with a
speculum horas a medieval tool used to
force open a person's mouth women while
usually left unshackled were raped and
sexually abused by members of the crew
sometimes arriving in the new world
carrying the children of their attackers
but it was the women using their
miniscule freedoms who would often
coordinate mutinies against their
captors but these rebellions were rarely
successful the true extent of the
horrors of the Middle Passage came to
light in a 1783 court trial over the
slave ship zong the song left
present-day Ghana in August of 1781 with
442 enslaved on board after a two-month
journey riddled with navigation errors
62 enslaved people and seven crew
members had perished without reaching
their destination disease was spreading
throughout the ship and fresh water was
running dangerously low captain Luke
Collingwood was afraid of the financial
cost of more deaths enslaved people that
died of disease were not covered by the
ship's insurance but the enslaved who
drowned were Collingwood
130 enslaved people thrown overboard he
claimed it was necessary to do so to
halt the spread of disease at the trial
between the songs owners and their
insurance company the owners argue that
because it was legal to kill sick
animals for the health of a ship it was
legal to treat enslaved people the same
the court agreed with the ship's owners
but the trial itself exposed the horrors
aboard the song and it's story was
republished by British abolitionists but
the name of the ship redacted meant to
show that this tragedy could happen on
any ship transporting enslaved people
across the Middle Passage 24 years after
the song trial the international slave
trade was outlawed in both Great Britain
and the United States it would take
England an additional 26 years in the
u.s. another 58 years plus a civil war
before the practice of slavery was
officially abolished
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