Essay: Life During the Slave Trade

In Alexander Falconbridge’s book, ‘An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa,’ he described how the slaves were treated when they were first on board the ship. Falconbridge explained that they are “fed only twice a day,” but in most ships they were only fed with their own food once a day. They are also only allowed half a pint each at every meal. That is barely enough food and water for each person to survive; the Europeans barely kept them alive. They cannot even rebel by not eating their food because then they will have hot coals placed near their lips to burn them. There has been an account of one of the captains in the slave-trade to have “poured melted lead” on a person who refused their food.
The fact that these slaves would try to starve themselves by refusing food and that they would try to jump off the ship when they were taken above deck explains that their life on the slave ships were unbearable. They were kept in a ship with barely any freedom, stuck in their designated rooms where they had to share tubs to get rid of waste. The slaves were also more prone to seasickness so many people died from just being sick. The ships in the slave trade only had about five airports on each side of the ship that were about five inches in length, so there was not a lot of fresh air to go around for everyone. Since there were little fresh air, the rooms were extremely hot and unbearable. On top of the rooms being extremely hot, the floor of their rooms were “covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughterhouse,” as described in Alexander Falconbridge’s book, ‘An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa.”
In the excerpt from ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” he described his experience firsthand as a slave on the slave trade. He was sent down to the decks with the other slaves and he did not have the appetite to eat due to the stench from the blood, mucus, and heat. The Europeans offered Equiano food to eat, but he declined and so they flogged, or beat him with a whip or stick severely. He was treated so badly that he wished for death to relieve him of his pain and suffering.
One day, the Europeans caught more fish than they could eat. The slaves thought they were going to be given the extra fish they caught, but they tossed the fish into the sea again. Olaudah Equiano also witnessed a white man brutally beating another white man with a large rope that he died because of it. That made Equiano fear the Europeans even more because they are capable of doing such cruel things to their own people, they could do far much worse to the slaves.
Life as a slave on a slave ship was so bad that many slaves have tried to kill themselves or escape by jumping off the ship and into the ocean. The ones that attempted to do so were “most severely cut, for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating,” as stated in Equiano’s excerpt.
When the slave ship arrived on the island of Barbados, they were examined and sold by the buyers with the inevitability of not seeing one another once again. Olaudah Equiano’s excerpt included a question for the Europeans that conducted the slave trade, “Learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you?” In the last paragraph of his excerpt, he is obviously angry that this slave trade is actually happening.
The two readings explain life on the slave ship and how they were treated unjustly. They were treated unfairly because of their living circumstances below deck. They were chained together and they were not allowed proper fresh air, which resulted in the rooms being extremely hot and stinky. Due to the lack of fresh air, they did not have much of an appetite for the little food that the Europeans were giving them and they were beaten badly and cruelly if they refused their small meal. Life as a slave during the slave trade was just cruel and full of torture.