A typical induction for a slave ship

Welcome aboard the Good Ship Jesus, this is the first ship to be used to transport slaves. We have purchased you and we are going to transport you and sell you to new owners in a new world of hope and opportunity. The accommodations may seem cramped but I assure you we have carried sheep in worse conditions. You may not be able to sit up so I suggest you come to some arrangement with you slave buddy staying next to you to urinate and defecate in a suitable direction. as the decks will only be washed down once a week or so. The cruise will take around three months to complete. The journey may be somewhat boring for our sailors, So the women and girls maybe called upon several times a day to perform acts of pleasure. Some of the boys may also be called upon.

You will eat what you are given. You will wash when you get to your destination. I have brought this old useless slave onboard to show you what will happen if you miss behave. I will gouge out anyone’s eye who refuses to watch this demonstration of torture.

Those of you that choose to die shall be thrown overboard.
Those of you who decide to become very sick shall be thrown overboard.
Those of you who try to escape shall be thrown overboard.
Those of you who attack any of the sailors will be thrown overboard.
Those of you who try to kill yourselves will be thrown overboard.

It many come to pass that we will lose too much cargo due to illness. We may need to make a fraudulent insurance claim to ensure a profit. therefore you will be thrown overboard.

The Middle Passage

Chained together by their hands and feet, the slaves had little room to move. It has been estimated that only about half of the enslaved Africans were effective workers in the Americas. A large number of slaves died on the journey from diseases such as smallpox and dysentery. Others committed suicide by refusing to eat. Many of the enslaved Africans were crippled for life as a consequence of the way they were chained up on the ship.

By the 17th century people could be purchased in Africa for about $25 and sold in the Americas for about $150. After the slave-trade was declared illegal, prices were much higher. Even with a death-rate of 50 per cent, merchants could expect to make tremendous profits from the trade.

A former slave, Olaudah Equiano, wrote:

The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast, was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror, when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled, and tossed up to see if I were sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me.

I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a greeting in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely.

The white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among my people such instances of brutal cruelty. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.

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. The wretched situation was again aggravated by the chains, now unsupportable, 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.