The Middle Passage

Slaves would be routinely punished with whipping and beating amongst other forms of punishment. They would be held in captivity and below the deck of the ship all night with no access to any essentials such as bathrooms. 10-15 million slaves who were to be forced across the Atlantic, at least 2 million died. (between 15-20%)

When they were allowed on the upper deck for brief period during the daytime, slaves were forced to ‘exercise’.

In such unbelievably terrible conditions, slaves sometimes tried to rebel to overthrow the rule of the ship’s crew.

Enslaved people were commonly branded with the imprint of the French, English or Dutch company that had purchased them.

Layout of a slave ship

A Drawing of how the enslaved would sleep

Olaudah Equiano Born in West Africa At 11 years old he was put onto a slave ship headed for the Americas Was purchased in Virginia, and his master later took him back to England with him There, he learned to read and write Wrote on autobiography discussing the horrors of slavery and the Middle Passage

Excerpt from his autobiography “The first object [I saw] when I arrived on the coast [of West Africa], was the sea, and a slave ship…waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, … soon… terror… I wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me…I would have jumped over the side, but I could not…the shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, [made] the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.”

What did you want to know? What did you learn?