Middle Passage

The "Middle Passage" was the struggling journey to slavery, in which human rights were horribly abused. Britain needed raw materials, such as cotton, tobacco, coffee and sugar, which didn't grow well in many parts of Europe. These are very lucrative crops and need a lot of field hands to plant, plough and harvest. White labourers cost a lot of money and slavery seemed like the most economical way to do plantation. As a result, Europeans went to Africa to capture slaves for plantation labour in America and West Indies. They were captured in raids or warfare, stripped and whipped onto ships. During the Middle Passage, Africans' rights were abused so badly that they were treated worse then animals. On the slave ships, people were stuffed between decks in spaces too low for standing. The heat was often unbearable, and the air nearly unbreathable. Many went mad in these barbaric conditions; others chose to jump to their watery deaths rather than endure. The common sailors were allowed to have intercourse with slave women with or without consent. These actions were beyond unacceptable behaviour. Slaves were often chained in pairs, shackled wrist to wrist or ankle to ankle. People were crowded together, usually forced to lie on their backs with their heads between the legs of others. This meant they often had to lie in each other's mucus, urine and, in the case of dysentery, even blood. In such cramped quarters, diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever spread like wildfire. The diseased were sometimes thrown overboard to prevent wholesale epidemics. Olaudah Equiano, kidnapped as a boy from his homeland, said: "The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole scene of horror, almost inconceivable. I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me." The fear in these words clearly illustrates the horror and cruelty towards the Africans. Because a small crew had to control so many, cruel measures such as iron muzzles and whippings were used to control slaves. For example, in The Zone humans were thrown overboard in hope to collect insurance on their deaths. The journey took around 60-90 days. Slaves were fed beans, boiled pulp, boiled yams and rice. They were given sauce of palm oil mixed with flour, water and pepper. The first slave trade ship arrived in America in 1607 and after that approximately 54,000 voyages were made by Europeans to buy and sell more slaves. 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the America, yet only 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage. As the ship got closer to land, many Africans were relieved, yet they didn't know that the Middle Passage was only the beginning of their long journey of struggle.