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The Middle Passage was one leg of the of the Triangular Trade between Europe, Africa
and the Americas as part Atlantic Slave Trade. You of the have heard me refer to the
Atlantic Slave Trade as "abysmal," in that the depths of the brutality Africans
experienced can never be fully captured. As Toni Morrison has cautioned, to do so is
impossible: “Language can never ‘pin down’ slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it
yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so.
Olaudah Equiano, however, does offer us just a glimpse of one persons ordeal. Equiano's
book, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavas Vassa the African,
provides a rare firsthand account the middle passage from someone who actually
experienced it. A warning to viewers. This excerpt contains graphic scenes that may be
disturbing to some viewers.
His narrative begins on the continent of Africa through the middle passage and continues
by chronicling his experience in the Western Hemisphere and, finally his emancipation.
As he's being brought on board the slave ship that is to take him to the Western
Hemisphere he writes: "Soon after this, the blacks who brought me on board went off,
and left me abandoned to despair. 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."
That's a very profound statement that he makes there because as we've seen slavery
is nothing new in terms of human history. Egyptians practiced it, Romans practiced
it, the Greeks practiced it, and West Africans practiced it, but he makes clear that there is a
very sharp distinction between slavery as existed in West Africa and what he was
experiencing. A watershed moment in terms of human history.
He continues: " I was soon 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 had never
experienced anything of this kind before; and although not being used to the water, I
naturally feared that element the first time I saw it; yet, nevertheless, could I have got
over the nettings, 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....
One day, when we had a smooth sea, and moderate wind, two of my wearied
countrymen, who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to
such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings, and jumped into the sea;
immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was
suffered to be out of irons..." They took him out of irons because he was sick."... also
followed their example; and I believe many more would very soon have done the same, if
they had not been prevented by the ship's crew, who were instantly alarmed."
Later, he writes of the justification of slavery -- the Western justification of slavery
as a rescue from barbarism. He answers that assertion by writing later on: " O, ye nominal
Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God? who says
unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you. Is it not enough that we
are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and *** of gain? Must every
tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are the dearest friends and
relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted
from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small
comfort of being together, and mingling their sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to
lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new
refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates
distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery."
Equiano's narrative reveals several things about the institution of slavery in a global
context. One, slavery was never anything new. West Africa was no exception. If you
recall our earlier discussion of the frontier, West Africa was full of meeting places between
2 or more groups of people who considered themselves distinct from one another. As is
often the case when 2 or more groups of people meet, there was conflict. With conflict
comes warfare, with warfare comes war captives ... and what do civilizations tend to do
with their enemies who they have captured during warfare? They, of course, enslaved
them. That is the reason why the institution of slavery is about as old as human
civilization itself. Slavery had existed prior to the arrival of Europeans and continued from
the very beginnings of West African civilizations of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, and
continued when Muslims arrived on the scene. By the time Europeans arrived on the
scene the institution of slavery and the slave trade was already well-established and
well entrenched. There was simply no reason why Africans would've thought the trading
slaves to the Europeans was any different from anything they had done for centuries. Again,
recall our discussion of the frontier and how it can illuminate the choices people
make as active agents in the historical events unfolding around them. While we can
look back and see the devastating impact of those choices, we can also see how
the choices Africans made in selling enemy groups to European slave traders would
have made perfect sense to them at the time.
It also must be stated, however, that the Atlantic slave trade was a radical departure
from slavery we have seen in world history up to that point. Slavery up to that point is
typically been a way of incorporating populations. It was a way of the Egyptians to
Egyptianize a population. It was away for the Romans to Romanize a population. It was
the way for the Muslims to Islamicize a population. Slavery as it existed in the
Atlantic slave trade is radically different. For reasons that we see in Episode 4: Slavery in
Black and White, slavery in the era of the Atlantic slave trade developed specifically as a
means of separating out a population. So slavery becomes intergenerational,
black folks get tagged with slave status, and a stay of slave status as a way of
separating them out in the population -- very radically different from any type of
slavery we've seen up to that point.
In addition to Equiano's narrative, we have evidence of the particular hardships
women faced on the middle passage. Often sequestered from their African male
brethren in separate compartments below deck, African women were easy
*** targets for European slave traders on the long trans-Atlantic voyage.
Seasoning was a disciplinary process intended to modify the behavior and attitude of slaves
and make them effective laborers, acculturate them to the new life and work routine of
the Americas. As part of this process, the slaves' new masters gave them new
names, the language was literally beaten out of them as well as their native religion
which was often a vehicle for resistance and rebellion. That is the reason why, as we saw
in Episode 5, Africans adapted by modifying their religion so that they could disguise it as a
European mode of worship.Planters housed slaves undergoing seasoning with the
old Africans and Creoles - 2nd generation Africans who were born in the Americas, who
were worth three times the value of unseasoned new Africans.