LAST STORY

Zong, 1781

One of the biggest cases in the history of the Atlantic Slave trade brought out the issues of carelessness and selfish acts. The story of the slave ship Zong gives a remarkable account of how slaves were being murdered. The ship was under the command of Luke Collingwood and his crew. They left from the coast of Africa on September 6, 1781 on a voyage to Jamaica. On November 27, 1781 they arrived at an Island that they thought was Jamaica. By November 29, 1781 the ship had unfortunately claimed the lives of seven white men and sixty African slaves. (5) The crew had packed on more slaves than they had room and this caused a lot of disease and malnutrition. In Black Slaves in Britain, Shyllon states, "Chained two by two, right leg and left leg, right hand and left hand, each slave had less room than a man in a coffin." (6) It is no wonder why so many slaves were sick and had died, they were treated like animals and given hardly enough room to breathe.
Well that very day, Luke Collingwood made the decision of throwing the remaining sick Africans over the boat. He pulled his crew together and told them that if the sick slaves died a natural death, then the responsibility would be on them as the ship's crew. He then stated that if the slaves were thrown over while still alive for the safety of the ship it would be the under the responsibility of the underwriters. This seems very unjust, but at the time it was a law in Europe because slaves were seen as merchandise and a matter of insurance. The Law reads as followed:
"The insurer takes upon him the risk of the loss, capture, and death of slaves, or any other unavoidable accident to them: but natural death is always understood to be excepted: by natural death is meant, not only when it happens by disease or sickness, but also when the captive destroys himself through despair, which often happens: but when slaves are killed, or thrown into thrown into the sea in order to quell an insurrection on their part, then the insurers must answer." (7)

Collingwood was not the actual owner of the ship. The ship actually belonged to James Gregson, and a number of others who owned a slave ship firm in Liverpool. Collingwood took it upon himself to look out for the best interest of the owners as well as himself. He used the law in his favor, but there was no reason to throw the sick Africans over the boat because the ship was not in any danger. For the next three days Collingwood and his crew threw over 133 slaves, one managing to escape and climb back onto the boat. (8) Shyllon goes on to say, " The last ten victims sprang disdainfully from the grasp of their executioners, and leaped into the sea triumphantly embracing death."(9) Once again, I think that the Africans aboard the Zong as well as any other slave ship should be considered brave for enduring the painful, inhumane conditions they had to experience. Even when it came down to the seamen throwing the captured slaves over the boat, there were still ten people who faced death with a lot of courage.

Middle Passage 3

The Middle Passage

The ship that carried the Africans across the Atlantic was the Tecora, a slave ship sailing under a Portuguese flag, bound for Cuba. The ship was a brig, specially built for the slave trade, with a narrow, clipper-shaped hull and a sharp bow-- built for maneuverability and above all speed, to evade British anti-slave trade patrols. The voyage -- the "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic -- took two months....
After weeks or months of waiting in the baracoons at the river mouth, embarkment happened in a sudden rush: the slaves were herded out of the baracoons, marched to the water's edge and forced into large wooden canoes to be ferried out to the slave ship looming beyond the surf. The European slavers and their African workers, members of a coastal tribe, the Kru, worked rapidly; if a British cruiser suddenly appeared on the horizon, the venture was lost -- and the slaves likely thrown into the surf to drown.
In a series of wrenching dislocations, this must have been the most terrifying. None of the captives had ever been to sea before, in all likelihood. Many, convinced they were going to be killed and eaten by their captors, tried to plunge into the surf and drown themselves; slavers and Kru men had learned to watch carefully for that.
Once loaded, the slave ship quickly weighed anchor and sailed off. Land -- Africa -- would have dropped out of sight within a few hours, if any of the slaves were on deck to see it. The Middle Passage had begun.
The slaves were packed into a dark, stooped space called the slave deck, about four feet high, built below the main deck, above the hold. In the testimony later given by the Amistad Africans about this nightmare voyage, the most vivid aspect of the experience was the cramped waiting, tossing in the waves, in suffocating, fetid darkness. Both Cinque and Grabeau reenacted their confinement by getting down on the floor and curling into hunched balls.
Periodically they were brought up on deck and fed rice. If some of the captives tried to starve themselves, as often happened, they were whipped and forced to eat. Few managed to starve, but over the two months they were at sea, water supplies ran low, and disease spread through the close-packed, unventilated slave deck. By the time theTecora had crossed the Atlantic, a third of the Africans had died.

Stories | Themes | People | Places

PICS

A slave ship

Exercising Slaves on a Trans-Atlantic Slave Ship

Images of African Slavery and the Slave Trade

To preserve the human cargo on a slave ship, individuals were occasionally allowed up on deck for exercise (and to provide entertainment for the crew). Note that they are being 'encouraged' by sailors holding whips.

ARTWORK

Look and absorbed this picture: How does it make you feel?  How do you think the captives felt? 

From an engraving entitled The Africans of the slave bark "Wildfire" brought into Key West on April 30, 1860 which appeared in Harpers Weekly on 2 June 1860. The picture shows a separation of sexes: African men crowded onto a lower deck, African women on an upper deck at the back.

 

 

Middle Passage 2

Here is 2 of 3!!!!! Again as you read these stories, put yourself in the authors shoes!!!

Account of the Middle Passage from The InterestingNarrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

"At last, when the ship we were in, had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was be 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, from a variety of loathsome smells and brought on a sickness among the slaves of which many died-thus falling victims to this improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. Thi s wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now became insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror, almost inconceivable. Happily perhaps, for myself, I was soon reduced so low here that it was thought necessary to keep me almost always on deck; and from my extreme youth I was not put in fetters. In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries. Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself. I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often wished I could changed my condition for theirs. Every circumstances I met with, and heightened my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.

One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fir, to our astonishment who were on deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tos sed the remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well as we could, but in vain; and some of countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an opportunity, when they thought no none saw them, of trying to get a little private ly; but they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings. One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together, (I was near them at the time,) preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea: immediately, another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would very soon h ave done the same, if they had not been prevented by the ship's crew, who were instantly alarmed. Those of us that were the most active, were in a moment put down under the deck, and there was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her, and get the boat out to go after the slaves. However, two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully, for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade. Many a time we were near suffocation from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together. This, and the ste nch of the necessary tubs, carried off many more."

The Trip Over

This is an account of the conditions of the ship and how many slaves were treated!  You will have 3 of these to read.  You will choose ONE to concentrate your response essay.  Remember WHO you are as you are writing!!! 

MIDDLE PASSAGE REALITY

In July of 1788, Liverpool slave-trade participants testified about their activities in Parliament. They told MPs that slaves, among other things, were comfortable during transatlantic crossings.
Then, under intense cross examination, they acknowledged the truth. We pick up the story in chapter 23 of Clarkson's history:

Every slave, whatever his size might be, was found to have only five feet and six inches in length, and sixteen inches in breadth, to lie in. The floor was covered with bodies stowed or packed according to this allowance: but between the floor and the deck or ceiling were often platforms or broad shelves in the mid-way, which were covered with bodies

When captives were brought to the African ports, they were bound together, two by two. Were they also tethered, in some manner, aboard ship?

The men were chained two and two together by their hands and feet, and were chained also by means of ring-bolts, which were fastened to the deck. They were confined in this manner at least all the time they remained upon the coast, which was from six weeks to six months as it might happen.

If they were captured to provide free labor, Africans needed nourishment. What did they eat?

Their allowance consisted of one pint of water a day to each person, and they were fed twice a day with yams and horsebeans.

Some of the captives refused to eat, wishing to die rather than to live in such horrific conditions. When that happened, slavers would force-open their mouths with a device (called a speculum oris) which looked like an instrument of torture. (See Clarkson, chapter 17.)

Confined in cramped quarters, how did the captives keep their bodies limber?

After meals they jumped up in their irons for exercise. This was so necessary for their health, that they were whipped if they refused to do it; and this jumping had been termed dancing.

Young girls could also be whipped if they refused the captain's order to dance without their clothes. One example was memorialized by George Cruikshank on the 10th of April, 1792.

John Kimber, captain of the slave ship Recovery, whipped a fifteen-year-old captive while she was suspended by her ankle. Although she died of her injuries, a jury in the High Court of Admiralty acquitted Kimber. They concluded the girl had died of disease, not mistreatment.

Were captives allowed to breathe fresh air, or did they spend most of their time below deck?

They were usually fifteen and sixteen hours below deck out of the twenty-four. In rainy weather they could not be brought up for two or three days together. If the ship was full, their situation was then distressing. They sometimes drew their breath with anxious and laborious efforts, and some died of suffocation.

It is said one could smell an approaching slave ship ten miles away, so horrific were its onboard conditions.

READ ARTICLE!!!!

Transatlantic Slave Trade

© UNESCO

The transatlantic slave trade is unique within the universal history of slavery for three main reasons:

• its duration - approximately four centuries
• those vicitimized: black African men, women
  and children
• the intellectual legitimization attempted on its behalf - the development of an anti-black ideology and its legal organization, the notorious Code noir.

As a commercial and economic enterprise, the slave trade provides a dramatic example of the consequences resulting from particular intersections of history and geography. It involved several regions and continents: Africa, America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Indian Ocean.

The transatlantic slave trade is often regarded as the first system of globalization. According to French historian Jean-Michel Deveau the slave trade and consequently slavery, which lasted from the 16th to the 19th century, constitute one of "the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity in terms of scale and duration".

The transatlantic slave trade was the biggest deportation in history and a determining factor in the world economy of the 18th century. Millions of Africans were torn from their homes, deported to the American continent and sold as slaves.

Triangular Trade
The transatlantic slave trade, often known as the triangular trade, connected the economies of three continents. It is estimated that between 25 to 30 million people, men, women and children, were deported from their homes and sold as slaves in the different slave trading systems. In the transatlantic slave trade alone the estimate of those deported is believed to be approximately 17 million. These figures exclude those who died aboard the ships and in the course of wars and raids connected to the trade.

The trade proceeded in three steps. The ships left Western Europe for Africa loaded with goods which were to be exchanged for slaves. Upon their arrival in Africa the captains traded their merchandise for captive slaves. Weapons and gun powder were the most important commodities but textiles, pearls and other manufactured goods, as well as rum, were also in high demand. The exchange could last from one week to several months. The second step was the crossing of the Atlantic. Africans were transported to America to be sold throughout the continent. The third step connected America to Europe. The slave traders brought back mostly agricultural products, produced by the slaves. The main product was sugar, followed by cotton, coffee, tobacco and rice.

The circuit lasted approximately eighteen months. In order to be able to transport the maximum number of slaves, the ship’s steerage was frequently removed. Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, England and France, were the main triangular trading countries.

MAP

As you can see  there were many other countries involved in the Slave Trade.

What countries were involved?
What time periods were certain routes travelled.
Why do you think these countries were involved?  What were the economic benefits of the this arrangement?

Lesson Plan

Good Afternoon:


Todays lesson deals with the issue of Slavery in the United States!


NCSS Standards covered will be:
I.  Culture
II. Time, Continuity, and Change
III.  Individuals, Groups, and Institutions



While we study the institution of Slavery we will question what historical issues did it produce.
We will analyze and interpret what social, political, and economic factors played a role in it being instituted as well as discontinued.
We will hypothesis what could be the possible effects of this institution- short term and long term.


OBJECTIVE: Todays lesson will define what slavery is and what role, if any did other countries play in the American slave trade. We will analyze literature that descirbes the trip over to the New World  referred to as The Middle Passage.

Anticipated outcomes: SWBAT: Study a map and identify Slaverys' global impact.
                                   SWBAT: Read and analyze a piece of Literature
                                   SWBAT: Write a response essay from the role of the slave-in other words YOU will
                                                    be the slave!  You are pretending to write a friend back home of your
                                                   experience thus far.

Lesson on Slavery

Good Afternoon Class!
Very soon I will be putting the unit lesson on Slavery up.........to be continued!!

Hello Everyone!!! This is my first BLOG!!!! YEAH!!!!!