Nicolas Kane
History 498
Research Project Synopsis
Struggle at Sea
My research paper is on the Atlantic Slave Trade and its overall affect on the way that slaves were transported from Africa throughout Europe. The struggle that was happening at sea was brutal and vicious. Every slave was transported through Slave Ships and had to endure the treacherous sea. I will be examining the hierarchy of the Slave Ships and offer first hand encounters of captains, slaves, and sailors through their voyages across sea.
The slave industry was extremely profitable for pioneers who were also slave merchants. Between the years 1540 and 1850 there was a boom in the amount of slaves that was crossing the Atlantic. A merchant would purchase a slave for about $25.00 dollars and then re-sold slaves upwards of $150.00 or more once the slave trade was made illegal. Even though 50% of the slaves died during a typical slaving voyage, the margin of profit was the driving force behind slaving. On an average journey from Africa, it would take anywhere from one and a half to two months on a typical voyage through every type of weather possible. Famine was extremely abundant and living conditions were terrible.
The Atlantic Slave Trade brought over fifteen million Africans to the New World serving as slaves. Some of the most treacherous tales from this gloomy era took place upon what was known as a slave ship. Captains Thomas Phillips and John Newton’s Autobiographies paint a clear picture to the actual horrors that took place among these ships. Slave Ship Captain Thomas Phillips recalls of a terrifying occurrence with the crew and slaves, Captain Phillips stated, “I have been informed that some commanders have cut off the legs or arms of the most willful slaves, to terrify the rest, for they believe that, if they lose a member, they cannot return home again”[1]. These types of gruesome acts put Captains into a strange kind of slave-ship politics. With Captains having to please their own crew as well as act humane and true to themselves, the life of a Captain was very difficult. The politics and tribulations that were endured during these slaving voyages showed the struggle for humanity and morality.
Although the Captain of the ship is most often thought to be the one in charge, they were now finding themselves to be in difficult situations between choosing right from wrong. Captains were forced to do things that they did not want to do to restore order, power, and fear among the sailors, officers and slaves. After the severing of an innocent man’s limbs, Phillips recalls the conversation from his officers,”I was advised by my officers to do the same, but I could not be persuaded to entertain the least thought of it, much less to put in practice such barbarity and cruelty to poor creatures who, excepting their want of Christianity and true religion (their misfortune more than fault), are as much the works of God’s hands, and no doubt as dear to him as ourselves.”[2] Captains had to show their loyalty to their fellow sailors and partake in the massacring.
John Newton, another acclaimed Slave Ship Captain also spoke of the treatment of slaves. He, like other Captains of these ships was only in it for the pay. He was more about numbers, getting slaves on and cramming them in. “Their lodging-rooms below the deck, which are three (for men, the boys, and the women) besides a place for the sick, are sometimes more than five feet high, and sometimes less; and this height divided towards the middle, for the slaves lie in tow rows, one above the other, on each side of the ship, close to each other like books upon a shelf. I have known them so close, that the shelf would not easily, contain one more.”[3] Although these Captains claim to have remorse and distain for their actions, nothing compares to what the slaves had to endure from being kidnapped at young ages to being slaves in the New World.
Out of the fifteen plus million that crossed the Atlantic in Slaving Ships, roughly around five million slaves, men, women, and children, died during their voyage. When the Europeans came to Africa, they would grab every single person they could, not caring which age they were and would throw them onto these ships to be hoisted away, Ottobah Cugoano, a slave on a vessel recalls his earlier years: “I was nearly snatched away from my native country, with about eighteen or twenty more boys and girls, as we were playing in a field. We lived but a few days’ journey from the coast where we were kidnapped… Some of us attempted, in vain, to run away, but pistols and cutlasses were soon introduced, threatening, that if we offered to stir, we should all lie dead on the spot.”[4] Most of these children didn’t even have a chance to live. The harsh tides and unhealthy conditions below the deck proved to be some of the more inhumane places to eat, breath, and even sleep. Most children were told by the white man that they were moving to a better place, often convincing them that they were headed to a life of joy rather than servitude.
On the ship slaves were forced to fend for themselves while death was more prevalent than life during the voyages across sea. Slaves were often forced to sleep in very close quarters of each other where even the slightest movement would prove to be too much. Being chained together under the ship’s deck for long periods of time would case the air to become stale and sickness came short after. Olaudah Equiano recalls the first time he went below the deck of a ship into his “housing unit”. “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 relive me.”[5] Women were often chained and sometimes taken as mistresses to white sailors upon the ships. Men were not so lucky and often made examples out of. Violence was the extreme means that sailors used to strike fear into slaves and to keep them from revolting. Equiano’s experiences were made famous because of the detail and gruesome accounts that he endured and lived to tell about. He, as many slaves endured the same type of brutality and beating within the slave ships walls. “…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.”[6] Conditions were extremely tough among the ship and many slaves pondered the idea of a revolt. Any slaves associated with any plans were immediately tortured and executed. A sort of politics began to develop in the ships while some slaves would turn on their fellow man for food and water. The opportunity for survival on a slave ship being a slave was very slim and only the strong and the lucky were able to survive.
Sailors upon these ships acted as the hammers of force for keeping the slaves in line and often encouraged using violence as a way of displaying force and power. Because these sailors had to answer to the captain, and the captain had to appease the crew, they ultimately had the ability to do whatever they wanted on the ship. Sailors and officers often had to maintain watch over twenty to fifty slaves by themselves. Rapes were not uncommon as many women were held against their will at the hands of sailors.
One overlooked aspect of sailors on slaving vessels was the use of black sailors. Although during this time it was often unheard of for a black sailor to be on a slave ship, it did happen. Because the sea offered an even keel, whites would utilize the power and skills of black sailors among these ships. Although sometimes forced to do inhumane things to their fellow man, and being a black sailor on a slave ship vs. a slave on a slave ship was two different worlds.
My research on this topic has allowed me to grasp a new dimension to the slave trade that was previously not discussed. Although the tales of slaving on land sound terrible, nothing was more gruesome then their sea expedition in the first place. When discussing the hierarchy of the slaving ships it is difficult to embrace what was done during this dark moment in world history.
[1] Phillips, Thomas, and Awnsham Churchill. A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London, Ann. 1693, 1694, from England to Cape Monseradoe in Africa, and Thence along the Coast of Guiney to Whidaw, the Island of St. Thomas, and so Forward to Barbadoes ; with a Cursory Account of the Country, the People, Their Manners, Forts, Trade, &c. London: H. Lintot, 1746. Print.
[2] Phillips, Thomas, and Awnsham Churchill. A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London, Ann. 1693, 1694, from England to Cape Monseradoe in Africa, and Thence along the Coast of Guiney to Whidaw, the Island of St. Thomas, and so Forward to Barbadoes ; with a Cursory Account of the Country, the People, Their Manners, Forts, Trade, &c. London: H. Lintot, 1746. Print.
[3] Newton, John, and Dennis R. Hillman. Out of the Depths. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2003. Print.
Bibliography:
Christopher, Emma. Slave Ship Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730-1807. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.
Phillips, Thomas, and Awnsham Churchill. A Journal of a Voyage Made in the Hannibal of London, Ann. 1693, 1694, from England to Cape Monseradoe in Africa, and Thence along the Coast of Guiney to Whidaw, the Island of St. Thomas, and so Forward to Barbadoes ; with a Cursory Account of the Country, the People, Their Manners, Forts, Trade, &c. London: H. Lintot, 1746. Print.
Newton, John, and Dennis R. Hillman. Out of the Depths. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2003. Print.
Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human History. New York: Penguin Group. 2007
