Slave ships crammed as many enslaved Africans as possible below the decks. This illustration is from an anti-slavery poster printed in Philadelphia, May 29, 1789

Captured Africans would wait in chains at African harbors where many European nations had specialized slave castles. Slave castles were large fortified ports, which could be defended from African armies and rival European navies. There, captive Africans were herded by gender into holding cells. In these cramped, prison-like cells, families were split, people died of malnutrition, and disease spread. Dozens or even hundreds of people were herded as if they were livestock into dark dungeons. They remained there sometimes for weeks, until traders managed to negotiate a fair price for their human cargo. They were often branded before entering the slave ships to prevent competitors from stealing them. Those who had not been killed during the process of being captured had to face the horrific conditions on the ship's journey over the Atlantic to the Americas, known as the Middle Passage.

Because enslaved Africans were expensive to purchase, ship owners wanted to maximize profits by overloading their ships. Enslaved Africans were chained together and crammed below the ship's decks. They had little room to move. The average crossing in the 1500s took between three and six months. People packed in the ships had to endure unimaginable filth, stench, and stifling heat. Not surprisingly, records show that in the 1500s and 1600s about 10% to 20% of the enslaved Africans died during an average crossing. If a member of the crew or a captive African had a deadly infectious disease, like smallpox, it would spread, killing most of the enslaved Africans and many of the crew. If disease was rampant, crews threw Africans overboard in the middle of the ocean to save themselves. In one gruesome incident, the crew of the slave ship Zong followed orders to throw sick captive Africans into the sea because their deaths were covered by insurance. Conditions on slave ships were often so horrible that captive Africans would often jump overboard, sometimes in large groups. This amounted to suicide because there was no hope of rescue at sea. But to captive Africans, death was better than the life that awaited them in the Americas.

Sailing ships were at the mercy of the wind and weather. Consequently, some ships took longer than expected and ran out of food for the captive Africans. The longer the voyage, the more people died. By the 1800s, faster ships made the journey between five and eight weeks. This increased speed reduced Middle Passage death rates by 5% to 10%. Sanitary conditions also improved as slave traders took better care of their cargo. This change was not done out of care for enslaved Africans but from a desire to get a better price for them when they were sold.

The slave trade was banned by many countries in the early 1800s, but many slave traders continued their business and became illegal smugglers. As a result, the unfortunate Africans on these ships were stuffed into dark hideaways to escape inspections. Because these illegal ships kept no records, historians do not know how many Africans were transported or died on them.

Think About It

During the colonial slave trade, captured Africans endured brutal conditions on ships that sailed the Middle Passage to the Americas. While onboard, they lived through filth, stench, and stifling heat in cramped quarters located below the decks of ships. Their journey sometimes lasted months and many died of disease. Following the journey, they were sold into slavery.

Using the Internet, search for news articles about the journeys of illegal immigrants from China, Mexico, or Africa to the United States or Europe (try terms such as illegal immigrants, smuggling, containers, ships, or Golden Venture). Read stories about at least two different events.

One of the best primary accounts of the Middle Passage was written by an African named Olaudah Equiano (pronounced Oh-LAU-duh Ay-kwee-AHN-oh) . In 1789, he wrote and published his autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. The book became a huge success in both America and Europe. Lesson 4 further describes the life of Equiano and his role in the movement to abolish slavery.

In Their Own Words

Olaudah Equiano describes the horrors of the Middle Passage:

When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow....I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly: and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo....I was soon to be put down under the decks and there I received such a salutation 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....I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water; and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating.

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (London 1789).

From 1789 until his death in 1797, Equiano gave lectures about his experiences to white Americans and Europeans. His writings and lectures exposed the atrocities of the slave trade and emphasized the humanity of Africans being enslaved. Equiano’s lectures and writings inspired the anti-slavery advocates of the time and encouraged generations of abolitionists. Today, his writings give history students a first-person account of what enslaved Africans experienced.

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Even when the deadly journey across the Middle Passage was over, enslaved Africans had more horrors to face. Many died within the first few years of their arrival to the Americas. These fatalities were due to seasoning, a period that enslavers believed all newcomers had to endure. Seasoning tested enslaved Africans' ability to survive. They had to outlive infectious diseases that the local populations had become immune to. They also had to live through illnesses that spread onboard ships among captive Africans. If the illnesses did not kill them, the change in diet weakened them. Dietary changes could cause diarrhea, which was often fatal if severe and untreated. Their resistance to disease was weakened further because they were worked to the point of exhaustion.

During their first years in the Americas, the Africans realized that they were doomed to a lifetime of perpetual slavery. There was no hope of escape or return to Africa for themselves or their children. The hopelessness many felt led to suicide, despair, and further weakness to disease. If they survived three years or recovered after an epidemic, a person was called seasoned. A seasoned enslaved African was seen as a tough, proven survivor.

Some enslavers seasoned Africans on islands off the coast of Africa before their journey. Others took them to camps in Jamaica or other Caribbean islands before transporting them to the United States. However, seasoning in the tropics did not make economic sense because traders and enslavers would lose money each day and with each death between capture and final sale. They made money by shipping and selling as many Africans as they could as quickly as they could. Therefore, most Africans came to the U.S. directly without any seasoning elsewhere. Their seasoning took place as they worked on the plantations.

The Worthy Park Estate in Jamaica kept exact records of the purchase and fate of enslaved Africans since it began commercially growing sugar cane in 1720. The estate had about 560 acres of sugar plantation and 355 enslaved Africans. The sugar harvest required even more workers, so the owners decided to buy new enslaved Africans to expand operations. In 1792, the owners bought 81 men, 62 women, and 38 children from Congo and the British colony of the Gold Coast, which is modern-day Ghana. The local authorities were worried about bringing in so many new enslaved Africans to one place. The owners provided food similar to African fare, such as yams and plantains to help with the adjustment. Even so, the plantation had to build a hospital, where 50 new Africans were housed for years. In three years, 38 of these new Africans died. This was despite the efforts of enslavers who did not want to see their expensive property die off so needlessly. Though it was an extreme example, the situation at Worthy Park Estate demonstrated the effects of disease on Africans in the Americas.

The seasoning process was part of the brutality the enslaved Africans experienced in the Americas. The fatality rate of Africans was high. Plantation owners needed new labor every few years to replace the enslaved Africans who had died. In Virginia and other British colonies, a large percentage of the enslaved Africans were women. Having more women allowed the North American enslavement to become self-sustaining because women and men could form families and their children would be born into enslavement. This situation made the experience of slavery in North America different from that in most other European colonies. The majority of enslaved Africans taken to the Caribbean and to Brazil were men. These plantations were dependent on new shipments of enslaved Africans every few months.

These circumstances explain why the actual population of enslaved Africans in the Americas was much smaller than the number of people who were transported from Africa. Consider the example of Hispaniola where slavery in the Americas began. From 1500 until 1791 at least 864,000 enslaved Africans were shipped to the island, most of which came in the 1700s. But a census taken in 1791 showed only 480,000 enslaved Africans on the island. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans had died due to brutality, harsh working conditions, and disease. Some had escaped to freedom, and perhaps death, in the mountains. Those enslaved Africans who did survive worked hard and made islands like Hispaniola profitable. By the end of the 1700s, Hispaniola exported about 70 million pounds of raw sugar, 50 million pounds of white sugar, 70 million pounds of coffee, and large quantities of cotton, indigo, molasses, and rum every year. These exports and their profits were made possible through the effort of enslaved Africans.

Effects of the Slave Trade

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P. Drake, Revelations of a Slave Smuggler: Being the Autobiography of Capt. Rich`d Drake, An African Trader for Fifty Years (New York: Robert M. DeWitt, [1860]), 98.

The slave trade damaged West Africa. The weapons trade between Europe and Africa did not help. The trade in people and guns encouraged warfare and contributed to political instability in the region. Other imported goods, such as manufactured tools of cloth, rarely helped the people or economies of West Africa. Wealthy merchants and political leaders benefitted from these goods, but they were rarely used by common people. As time progressed and European traders became more engaged with Africa, Europe’s control of the continent increased. By the late 19th century, Europe had almost total control over Africa. Only Liberia and Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) maintained independence in what came to be known as the Race for Africa. Many European powers opted to invade and directly control almost the entire continent. Africa was split between six or seven European countries by the year 1900, and millions of Africans were directly ruled by European monarchs. This led to even greater economic exploitation of the continent and its people.

In Their Own Words

Some in Africa foresaw the awful effects slavery would have on their continent. In the passage below, the king of Kongo complains about the effects of the slave trade in a letter written to King John of Portugal in 1526:

We cannot reckon how great the damage is, since the merchants are taking every day our natives, sons of the land and the sons of our noblemen and vassals and our relatives. The thieves and men of bad conscience grab them, wishing to have the things and wares of this Kingdom which they are ambitious of. They grab them and get them to be sold. And so great, Sir, is the corruption and licentiousness [recklessness] that our country is being completely depopulated, and your Highness should not agree with this nor accept it as in your service. And to avoid it we need from those your Kingdoms no more than some priests and a few people to teach in schools, and no other goods except wine and flour for the holy sacrament.

That is why we beg of Your Highness to help and assist us in this matter, commanding your agents that they should not send here either merchants or wares, because it is our will that in these kingdoms there should not be any trade of slaves nor outlet for them.

Basil Davidson, African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to Modern Times, (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2 edition, 1990), 223-4.

Lesson Review

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Practice Questions

Take some time to answer the following questions and to write your answers down in your notebook. Then click the “Check Answers” button to see our suggested answers. Some of these questions may be asked in the submission for this lesson.

How did the Middle Passage get its name?

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How did the ban on the slave trade in the early 1800s make the Middle Passage more dangerous to enslaved captives on board?

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Why did European colonists import enslaved Africans to the Americas?

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According to the figures in Revelations of a Slave Smuggler: Being the Autobiography of Capt. Rich'd Drake, An African Trader for Fifty Years, which part of the whole process of the slave trade, from capture to final enslavement, was the most dangerous to enslaved people? Which part was completely safe?

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Where did most of the Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas come from? Your answer should name at least three regions, or areas within those regions.

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Suggested Film

Prince Among Slaves. Directed by Andrea Kalin and Bill Duke. 2007. A documentary that traces the life of 26-year-old African prince Abdul-Ramen, who is captured in West Africa in 1788, taken aboard the slave ship Africa, and sold in America. Over the next 40 years, he endures enslavement and finally gains freedom at the age of 67. After raising the funds to pay for his children's freedom, he returns to Africa only to meet an untimely end.

To Learn More

Davis, D. B. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Heuman, G. J., and J. Walvin, eds. A Slavery Reader. London: Routledge, 2003.

Johnson, C., and P. Smith. Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1998.

Kelley, R., and E. Lewis, eds. To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Macinnis, P. Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2003.

Mintz, S. W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1986.

Morgan, E. S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: Norton, 1975.