The African slaves’ journey from their homeland to an unfamiliar new world was not a pleasant voyage. African captives that had been captured by slave seekers were thrust into severe mental and physical torture as soon as they were removed from their homes. The violence and destruction only continued once captives were placed on a slave ship. As prisoners on these ships, the African hostages were witness to the forcible segregation, assaults, and confinement so notorious of the Middle Passage. European slave ships often separated African men and women on ships to ensure control over the slaves. The men were kept in line by threatening the women and bound by chains. Although women were viewed as weak and easily manipulated, they were still kept separate from the men. Children, however, were …show more content…
To ensure that slaves would not rebel by uprising or by suicide, ship crews took advantage of various forms of torture. Crews forced captives to perform humiliating physical exercises or flailed them with whips in order to prevent insubordinate activities. For example, Oulaudah Equiano, a former slave, recounts in his 1789 memoir: “…on my refusing to eat, one of them [his captors] held me fast…and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely.” Other forms of abuse such as rape were common on slave ships as African men, unable to protect the women, were forced to hear about, and at times, see, the slavers violating female captives. Another anguish experienced on slaving vessels was disease. Africans, ripped from their homelands and unaccustomed to their new surroundings, quickly succumbed to numerous illnesses such as dysentery, measles, smallpox, and more. To diminish loss of their precious cargo, slavers often murdered the sick to keep disease from spreading. Unfortunately, the horrible conditions in which slaves were imposed heightened the transmission of sickness among the