Nowhere in the annals of history has a people experienced such a long and traumatic ordeal as Africans during the Atlantic slave trade. Over the nearly four centuries of the slave - which continued until the end of the Civil War - millions of African men, women, and children were savagely torn from their homeland, herded onto ships, and dispersed all over the so-called New World. Dr. John Henrik Clarke Wikipedia; The Middle Passage consists of a slave trade route between Africa and other countries. Commercial goods from Europe were shipped to Africa for sale and traded for enslaved Africans. Africans were in turn brought to the regions depicted in blue, in what became known as the Middle Passage. African slaves were thereafter traded for raw materials, which were returned to Europe to complete the Triangular Trade. MIDDLE PASSAGE The Middle Passage was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of people fromAfrica[1] were shipped to the New World as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods, which were traded for purchased or kidnapped Africans, who were transported across the Atlantic as slaves; the slaves were then sold or traded for raw materials,[2] which would be transported back to Europe to complete the voyage. Voyages on the Middle Passage were a large financial undertaking, and they were generally organized by companies or groups of investors rather than individuals.[3] The Middle Passage was considered a time of in-betweenness for those being traded from Africa to America. The close quarters and intentional division of pre-established African communities by the ship crew motivated captive Africans to forge bonds of kinship which then created forced transatlantic communities.[4] These newly established bonds greatly impacted and altered African identity and culture within each community. It was a significant contributing aspect to the slaves survival of the Middle Passage and carried into their life in America. Traders from the Americas and Caribbean received the enslaved Africans. European powers such as Portugal, England, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, andBrandenburg, as well as traders from Brazil and North America, took part in this trade. The enslaved Africans came mostly from eight regions: Senegambia, Upper Guinea, Windward Coast, Gold Coast, Bight of Benin, Bight of Biafra, West Central Africa and Southeastern Africa.[5] UP TO 4 MILLION SLAVE DEATHS An estimated 15% of the Africans died at sea, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself in the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to the ships.[6] The total number of African deaths directly attributable to the Middle Passage voyage is estimated at up to two million; a broader look at African deaths directly attributable to the institution of slavery from 1500 to 1900 suggests up to four million African deaths.[7] For two hundred years, 1440–1640, Portuguese slavers had a near monopoly on the export of slaves from Africa. During the eighteenth century, when the slave trade transported about 6 million Africans, British slavers carried almost 2.5 million.[8] JOURNEY Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. (From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.) The duration of the transatlantic voyage varied widely,[2] from one to six months depending on weather conditions. The journey became more efficient over the centuries; while an average transatlantic journey of the early sixteenth century lasted several months, by the nineteenth century the crossing often required fewer than six weeks.[9] The African slave trade was preceded by slave trade among the African peoples. Often, the spoils of war would include able-bodied men and women from the enemys village, who were taken and used as unpaid labor for the victors. In addition, the lowest classes of people in Africa were treated as subhuman, and often their labor, even in their own village, was unpaid, and/or forced labor that was mandated by the chief, and endorsed/practiced by the entire village. The opportunity to sell these slaves, or trade them for goods that were not available in Africa, was a natural extension of the treatment these people were receiving in their own home. This allowed the slave trade to flourish thoroughly, since there was initially little to no opposition among the African people.[10] However, other accounts of the slave trade led some to believe that the Africans were not accustomed to selling their people, enemies or otherwise, and that they were actually corrupted by the Europeans. Ludwig Romer’s account of the many interactions of Europeans and Africans in Africa, especially concerning the Middle Passage, cast reasonable doubt over the continued willingness of the Africans to sell other Africans into slavery. He quotes the Africans on the coast of Guinea, a major slave port, as saying that they had begun to regret selling human beings, because they were not benefiting as much as the Europeans from this trade, and were beginning to see how sending the slaves to a new country, where they would be even more alienated and abused, was immoral and cruel.[11][ African kings, warlords and private kidnappers sold captives to Europeans who held several coastal forts. The captives were usually force-marched to these ports along the western coast of Africa, where they were held for sale to the European or American slave traders in the barracoons. Typical slave ships contained several hundred slaves with about thirty crew members. The male captives were normally chained together in pairs to save space; right leg to the next mans left leg — while the women and children may have had somewhat more room. The captives were fed beans, corn, yams, rice, and palm oil. Slaves were fed one meal a day with water, but if food was scarce, slaveholders would get priority over the slaves.Sometimes captives were allowed to move around during the day, but many ships kept the shackles on throughout the arduous journey. Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million Africans arrived in the New World.[12][13] Disease and starvation due to the length of the passage were the main contributors to the death toll with amoebic dysentery and scurvy causing the majority of deaths. Additionally, outbreaks of smallpox, syphilis, measles, and other diseases spread rapidly in the close-quarter compartments. The rate of death increased with the length of the voyage, since the incidence of dysentery and of scurvy increased with longer stints at sea as the quality and amount of food and water diminished. In addition to physical sickness, many slaves became too depressed to eat or function efficiently due to loss of freedom, family, security, and their own humanity. SAILING TECHNOLOGIES In the 18th centurys Atlantic market economy, the need for profits drove changes in ship designs and in managing human cargo, which included enslaved Africans and the mostly white crew. Improvements in air flow on board the ships helped to decrease the infamous mortality rate that these ships had become known for throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The new designs that allowed ships to navigate faster and into rivers mouths ensured access to many more enslaving posts along the West African coast.[14] The monetary value of enslaved Africans in any given American auction-block during the mid-18th century ranged between $800 and $1,200, which in modern times would be equivalent to $32,000–48,000 apiece ($100 then is now worth $4,000 due to inflation). Therefore ship captains and investors sought technologies that would protect their human cargo.[15] Throughout the height of the Atlantic slave trade (1570-1808), slave ships were normally smaller than traditional cargo ships, with most slave ships weighing between 150 and 250 tons. This equated to about 350 to 450 enslaved Africans on each slave ship, or 1.5 to 2.4 per ton. The English ships of the time normally fell on the larger side of this spectrum and the French on the smaller side. Ships purposely designed to be smaller and more maneuverable were meant to navigate the African coastal rivers into farther inland ports; these ships therefore increased the effects of the slave trade on Africa. Additionally, the ships sizes increased slightly throughout the 1700s; however the number of enslaved Africans per ship remained the same. This reduction in the ratio of enslaved Africans to ship tonnage was designed to increase the amount of space per person and thus improve the survival chances of everyone on board. These ships also had temporary storage decks which were separated by an open latticework or grate bulkhead, Ship masters would presumably use these chambers to divide enslaved Africans and help prevent mutiny. Some ships developed by the turn of the 19th century even had ventilation ports built into the sides and between gun ports (with hatches to keep inclement weather out). These open deck designs increased airflow and thus help improve survival rates, diminishing potential investment losses.[14] Another major factor in “cargo protection” was the increase in knowledge of diseases and medicines (along with the inclusion of a variety of medicines on the ships). First the Dutch East India Company in the 18th century, followed by some other countries and companies in the late 18th early 19th centuries, realized that the inclusion of surgeons and other medical practitioners aboard their ships was an endeavor that proved too costly for the benefits. So instead of including medical personnel they just stocked the ships with a large variety of medicines; while this was better than no medicines, and given the fact that many crew members at least had some idea of how disease was spread, without the inclusion of medical personnel the mortality rate was still very high in the 18th century.[16] SLAVE TREATMENT AND RESISTANCE While treatment of slaves on the passage was varied, slaves treatment was often horrific because the captured African men and women were considered less than human; they were cargo, or goods, and treated as such; they were transported for marketing. Women with children were not as desirable for they took up too much space and toddlers were not wanted because of the everyday hassle.[17] For example, the Zong, a British slaver, took too many slaves on a voyage to the New World in 1781. Overcrowding combined with malnutrition and disease killed several crew members and around 60 slaves. Bad weather made the Zongs voyage slow; the captain decided to drown his slaves at sea, so the owners could collect insurance on the slaves. Over 100 slaves were killed and a number of slaves chose to kill themselves. The Zong incident became fuel for the abolitionist movement and a major court case, as the insurance company refused to compensate for the loss. While slaves were generally kept fed and supplied with drink, as healthy slaves were more valuable, if resources ran low on the long, unpredictable voyages, the crew received preferential treatment. Slave punishment was very common, as on the voyage the crew had to turn independent people into obedient slaves. Whipping and use of the cat o nine tailswere a common occurrence; sometimes slaves were beaten for melancholy.[citation needed]Pregnant women on the ships who delivered their babies aboard risked the chance of their children being killed in order for the mothers to be sold.[17] The worst punishments were for rebelling; in one instance a captain punished a failed rebellion by killing one involved slave immediately, and forcing two other slaves to eat his heart and liver.[18] SUICIDE Slaves resisted in a variety of ways. The two most common types of resistance were refusal to eat and suicide. Suicide was a frequent occurrence, often by refusal of food or medicine or jumping overboard, as well as by a variety of other opportunistic means.[19] Over the centuries, some African peoples, such as the Kru, came to be understood as holding substandard value as slaves, because they developed a reputation for being too proud for slavery, and for attempting suicide immediately upon losing their freedom.[20] Both suicide and self-starving were prevented as much as possible by slaver crews; slaves were often force-fed or tortured until they ate, though some still managed to starve themselves to death; slaves were kept away from means of suicide, and the sides of the deck were often netted.[citation needed] Slaves were still successful, especially at jumping overboard. Often when an uprising failed, the mutineers would jump en masse into the sea. Slaves generally believed that if they jumped overboard, they would be returned to their family and friends in their village, or to their ancestors, in the afterlife.[21] Suicide by jumping overboard was such a problem that captains had to address it directly in many cases. They used the sharks that followed the ships as a terror weapon. One captain, who had a rash of suicides on his ship, took a woman and lowered her into the water on a rope, and pulled her out as fast as possible. When she came in view, the sharks had already killed her—and bitten off the lower half of her body.[22] Uprisings[edit] Slave uprisings were fairly common, but few were successful (notably that on the La Amistad, which had a key effect on abolitionism in the United States): When we found ourselves at last taken away, death was more preferable than life, and a plan was concerted amongst us, that we might burn and blow up the ship, and to perish all together in the flames.[23] The number of participants varied widely, often the uprisings would end with the death of a few slaves and crew, and the surviving rebels were punished or executed to be made examples to the rest of the slaves on board. AFRICAN RELIGION Slaves also resisted through certain manifestations of their religions and mythology. They would appeal to their gods for protection and vengeance upon their captors, and would also try to curse and otherwise harm the crew using idols and fetishes. One crew found fetishes in their water supply, placed by slaves who believed it would kill all who drank from it.[21] SAILORS AND CREW The sailors experienced subpar conditions and were often employed through coercion. Sailors generally knew about and hated the slave trade, so, at port towns, recruiters and tavern owners would induce sailors to become very drunk (and indebted), and then offer to relieve their debt if they signed contracts with slave ships. If they did not, they would be imprisoned. Sailors in prison had a hard time getting jobs outside of the slave ship industry, since most other maritime industries would not hire jail-birds, so they were forced to go to the slave ships anyway.[24] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage BOOKS For the novel by Charles R. Johnson, see Middle Passage (novel). For the travelogue by V. S. Naipaul, see The Middle Passage (book). For the 1999 film by Guy Deslauriers, see Passage du milieu. SUMMARY Many people claim that the US is the greatest nation on Earth. When it comes to the diversity of cultures, races and religions that comprise the United States today, it is. The US does have and enjoys some hard won freedoms and rights that other countries like Communist China do not offer their citizens, so it is great in that way too. The US has a wide variety of religions that can be worshiped by anyone, and no one is forcing citizens to believe any particular God or Holy Book, so it is great in that way as well. Really great things like this are built on top of a foundation of myths, misconceptions and outright lies, which are hidden away in a deep dark closet that very few will dare talk about or even mention. Why cant these things be talked about? Fear and apathy are two things that make up the elephant in the room.. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil are the watchword of the mass media and education system, when it comes to talking about what REALLY happened historically speaking. The United States of Apathy agreenroad.blogspot/2014/07/the-united-states-of-apathy.html Wouldnt you agree that it would be more realistic to view both the light and dark, so that the whole truth can be seen? Anything that is suppressed has a way of coming out anyway, so why not deal with the whole truth? The US Is STILL The Greatest Nation On Earth, Right? via @AGreenRoad agreenroad.blogspot/2014/04/the-us-is-still-greatest-nation-on.html The history of the United State is based on the slave trade of human beings, as well as the genocide of the American Indians. The US still celebrates Columbus Day as an official holiday, but this whole historical fact is nothing but a myth, perpetuated to serve the interests of an empire built on violence, suffering, death, war, conquest and slavery. There was nothing peaceful about the takeover of the American continent. Historical Myth; Columbus Discovered America; The Canary Effect; via A Green Road agreenroad.blogspot/2012/12/historical-myth-columbus-discovered.html 19 To 100 Million Native American Indians Exterminated By Illegal Immigrant Settlers; via @AGreenRoad agreenroad.blogspot/2013/05/19-to-100-million-native-american.html To this day, the US government has not apologized to the American Indians that were the original inhabitants of the American continent for tens of thousands of years before the settlers arrived. The word to use should be occupiers or invaders, because that is the truth. The Japanese got a settlement and an apology, for having everything taken away from them and then being thrown by force into a prisoner of war camp during WWII. Why did the Japanese get paid and receive a formal apology, but the American Indians didnt? Texas was taken away from Mexico by force, and Hawaii was taken from the long line of tribal kings. Bottom line, much of the wealth that the 1% enjoy today was built on the foundation of an illegal military hostile takeover, making and then breaking treaties, forcing citizens of the Indian nation to move onto worthless reservations, and taking their resources by force. Once occupied, the settlers set about forcing slaves to produce wealth that made America what it is today. That violent and hidden takeover of wealth owned by others continues on today. To understand the issues and problems faced by the US today, one has to understand these violent roots. Art And Science Of Deception; Global Corporations And The 1% agreenroad.blogspot/p/corporations-art-and-science-of.html Although the US may be the greatest in some ways, it also has built into it, some huge defects and hidden secrets, which are fatal flaws, dooming the empire to eventual self destruction unless dealt with honestly and out in the open, via a transparent process of reconciliation, paradigm shifting and forgiveness on all sides. Africa and its process of open forgiveness after Apartheid provides an example of how this can work. Hiding the secrets and pretending that the US has no defects or dark things in the closet that need to be taken to the dump will serve no one, except for the 1% who profit from keeping the secrets hidden away. End Global Slave Trade And The Middle Passage; Up To 4 Million Slaves Died Or Were Killed agreenroad.blogspot/2014/10/global-slave-trade-and-middle-passage.html Posted 2 days ago by Dr. Good Heart
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 23:52:58 +0000
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