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By 1654, some
8,000-10,000 Africans each year were undergoing
the Middle Passage. During the next hundred
years, this number grew steadily, reaching its
peak sometime around 1750, when the annual
number stabilized at 60,000-70,000. Estimates on
the total number of Africans who were forced to
undergo the Middle Passage generally range from
9 to 15 million. Out of this number, some 3 to 5
million perished before they even reached the
Americas.
Slaves Below deck aboard the Albanez
This is a rare authentic view, done by an
English sailor, of a slave cargo hold. The
slaving vessel, the Albanez, had just been
captures by a British anti-slavery vessel, Albatross, and the captives were soon to be set
free.*
By the end of
January, 1700, the Henrietta Marie took
some 200 enslaved Africans aboard the Middle
Passage to the New World. The men, women and
children were shackled and confined to the
stifling cargo holds below deck. After securing
her cargo, the Henrietta Marie would have
brought food and water aboard for the long
voyage to the West Indies known as the Middle
Passage.
Copper Cook
Stove from the Henrietta Marie.
Although some European foods were acceptable,
experience taught slave traders that Africans did
better when they were fed foods that they were
accustomed to eating. The Henrietta Marie may
have stopped for yams, as they were thought to
be the most suitable food for people from the
Calabar region. Some 50,000 yams would have been
necessary to feed the 200 slaves aboard the
Henrietta Marie, and it would have taken about
one week to fully provision her for the voyage.
Africans were usually fed twice daily. Two cook
stoves were found aboard the Henrietta Marie,
one large one which was probably used to feed
sailors and slaves, and this smaller one,
possibly used in the officer's quarters.**
Disease
Slaves captured
or purchased in the African interior were often
held in confinement for months before they
finally arrived at the coast. Some of these
people had been wounded in battles, and others
were exposed to smallpox, yellow fever, and
other deadly diseases.
Captives
waiting to be traded as slaves to Europeans.***
The European
sailors often caught these ailments. John
Taylor, the captain of the Henrietta Marie's
second voyage, was not spared the threat of
disease and was ill or dying before the ship
left Africa.
Slave baracoons,
burial ground.****
The mortality
rate during the Middle Passage was high for
slaves and crew alike, averaging between 13 and
33 percent. The likelihood of contagion, however
was strongest for the Africans.
Africans
forced to dance for exercise.
Often slaves were permitted on deck in small
groups for brief periods, where crew would
encourage and many time force captives to dance
for exercise. On ships carrying larger loads of
enslaved Africans, it was not likely that all
individuals would be permitted on deck, and the
physician would usually select those most in
need of open-air exercise. The lack of exercise
and continuous motion of the ship contributed
greatly to gangrene, abrasions and sores that
plagued the captives..*****
Common hazards of
the voyage, stemming from no other source than
poor diet and close confinement, included scurvy
and gangrene. Dehydration, caused by lack of
drinking water and high loss of bodily fluids
from fevers or dysentery, was a primary killer
aboard the slaving vessels.
Symptoms included
melancholy and a loss of appetite but were not
understood by early ship's physicians, and often
went untreated until too late. In Addition,
contaminated water supplies produced a variety
of gastrointestinal disorders which increased
fatalities.
Stowage of
British Slave ship Brookes under the
Regulated Slave Trade.******
Conditions
Aboard the Ship
Africans were
confined below deck in cargo holds where they
were chained together on two tiers of shelves
with little or no room for adults to stand in.
Many cargo holds had less than 18" between
the shelves. Male slaves were generally held
captive with the right foot of one shackled to
the left foot of another. Women were not
normally chained and children were usually
allowed to run free on the ship. On some ships,
the captain might allow some of the men to be
released from their chains if they did not
appear to pose a threat to the crew keeping
watch on them.
Iron Shackles
from the Henrietta Marie.*******
In addition to
the physical discomforts of the Middle Passage,
the enslaved Africans were under great emotional
distress from being torn from their homeland and
families.
31" Cutlass
from the Henrietta Marie. ********
Rebellion at
Sea!
Slave ships
carried extra crew members for the purpose of
containing slaves during the Middle Passage. The
crew members were armed whenever slaves were on
deck, and ready to subdue resistance by any
means necessary. Nevertheless, mutinies occurred
regularly, usually resulting in the severe
punishment of the African slaves.
Joseph Cinque,
Leader of the Amisted Revolt c 1840*******
Remarkably, there
are notable examples of successful mutinies by
Africans. The most famous of these took place in
the Caribbean, when Joseph Cinque, an African of
high rank led his countrymen to overthrow the
crew of the Amistad. Cinque insisted that the
crew take them back to Africa, but the sailors
managed to steer north as well as east, finally
landing on the shores of Long Island. There the
Africans met abolitionists who helped them fight
for freedom in a landmark case that went all the
way to the supreme court.
*Artist:
Francis Meynell, Courtesy of the National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich, England
**Artist: David D. Moore
***Courtesy of the Granger Collection
****Courtesy of Northwind Archives
*****Courtesy of Mansell Collection
******Courtesy of the Library of Congress
*******Artist: Frank Besse
********Artist: Robert Cummings
*********Artist: Nathaniel Jocelyn, Courtesy of
the New Haven Historical Society
**********Artist: Mme H. Townsend, Courtesy of the
Bieneke Library
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