Monday, January 11, 2010

Aboard a Slave Ship (Week 2 in class)

Aboard a Slave Ship, 1829

In 1807 the British Parliament passed a bill prohibiting the slave trade. In January the following year the United States followed suit by outlawing the importation of slaves. The acts did nothing to curtail the trade of slaves within the nation's borders, but did end the overseas commerce in slaves. To enforce these laws, Britain and the United States jointly patrolled the seas off the coast of Africa, stopping suspected slave traders and confiscating the ship when slaves were found. The human cargo was then transported back to Africa.

Interception at Sea
Conditions aboard the slave ships were wretched. Men, women and children crammed into every available space, denied adequate room, food or breathing space. The stench was appalling - the atmosphere inhumane to say the least. The Reverend Robert Walsh served aboard one of the ships assigned to intercept the slavers off the African coast. On the morning of May 22, 1829, a suspected slaver was sighted and the naval vessel gave chase. The next day, a favorable wind allowed the interceptor to gain on its quarry and approach close enough to fire two shots across her bow. The slaver heaved to and an armed party from the interceptor scrambled aboard her. We join Reverend Walsh's account as he boards the slave ship:
"The first object that struck us was an enormous gun, turning on a swivel, on deck - the constant appendage of a pirate; and the next were large kettles for cooking, on the bows - the usual apparatus of a slaver. Our boat was now hoisted out, and I went on board with the officers. When we mounted her decks we found her full of slaves. She was called the Feloz, commanded by Captain Jose' Barbosa, bound to Bahia. She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner rigged, and behind her foremast was that large, formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate if her slaving speculation failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard 55. The slaves were all inclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low that they sat between each other's legs and [were] stowed so close together that there was no possibility of their lying down or at all changing their position by night or day. As they belonged to and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep with the owner's marks of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me with perfect indifference 'burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious-looking fellow with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them and seemed eager to exercise it. I was quite pleased to take this hateful badge out of his hand, and I have kept it ever since as a horrid memorial of reality, should I ever be disposed to forget the scene I witnessed.
As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them, their dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They perceived some- thing of sympathy and kindness in our looks which they had not been accustomed to, and, feeling instinctively that we were friends, they immediately began to shout and clap their hands. One or two had picked up a few Portuguese words, and cried out, "Viva! Viva!" The women were particularly excited. They all held up their arms, and when we bent down and shook hands with them, they could not contain their delight; they endeavored to scramble up on their knees, stretching up to kiss our hands, and we understood that they knew we were come to liberate them. Some, however, hung down their heads in apparently hopeless dejection; some were greatly emaciated, and some, particularly children, seemed dying.
But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly was how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells three feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the grated hatchways, was shut out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was standing in the shade, on our deck, at 89'. The space between decks was divided into two compartments 3 feet 3 inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18 and of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed the women and girls, into the second the men and boys: 226 fellow creatures were thus thrust into one space 288 feet square and 336 into another space 800 feet square, giving to the whole an average Of 23 inches and to each of the women not more than 13 inches. We also found manacles and fetters of different kinds, but it appears that they had all been taken off before we boarded.
The heat of these horrid places was so great and the odor so offensive that it was quite impossible to enter them, even had there been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who, from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them all. The officers, however, persisted, and the poor beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the effect of this eruption - 517 fellow creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation front stem to stern, so that it was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from or how they could have been stowed away. On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand.
After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs towards it. No entreaties or threats or blows could restrain them; they shrieked and struggled and fought with one another for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it.
It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints in that space of time, though they had left the coast in good health. Indeed, many of the survivors were seen lying about the decks in the last stage of emaciation and in a state of filth and misery not to be looked at. Even-handed justice had visited the effects of this unholy traffic on the crew who were engaged in it. Eight or nine had died, and at that moment six were in hammocks on board, in different stages of fever. This mortality did not arise from want of medicine. There was a large stock ostentatiously displayed in the cabin, with a manuscript book containing directions as to the quantities; but the only medical man on board to prescribe it was a black, who was as ignorant as his patients.
While expressing my horror at what I saw and exclaiming against the state of this vessel for conveying human beings, I was informed by my friends, who had passed so long a time on the coast of Africa and visited so many ships, that this was one of the best they had seen. The height sometimes between decks was only eighteen inches, so that the unfortunate beings could not turn round or even on their sides, the elevation being less than the breadth of their shoulders; and here they are usually chained to the decks by the neck and legs. In such a place the sense of misery and suffocation is so great that the Negroes, like the English in the Black Hole at Calcutta, are driven to a frenzy. They had on one occasion taken a slave vessel in the river Bonny; the slaves were stowed in the narrow space between decks and chained together. They heard a horrible din and tumult among them and could not imagine from what cause it proceeded. They opened the hatches and turned them up on deck. They were manacled together in twos and threes. Their horror may be well conceived when they found a number of them in different stages of suffocation; many of them were foaming at the mouth and in the last agonies-many were dead. A living man was sometimes dragged up, and his companion was a dead body; sometimes of the three attached to the same chain, one was dying and another dead. The tumult they had heard was the frenzy of those suffocating wretches in the last stage of fury and desperation, struggling to extricate themselves. When they were all dragged up, nineteen were irrecoverably dead. Many destroyed one another in the hopes of procuring room to breathe; men strangled those next them, and women drove nails into each other's brains. Many unfortunate creatures on other occasions took the first opportunity of leaping overboard and getting rid, in this way, of an intolerable life."
References: Walsh, Robert, Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829 (1831).

To see this aricle:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfslaveship.htm

13 comments:

  1. This article reminds me of the video clip we watched today in class. Reading this i can just imagine how they were beaten and how the slaves were inside the ship starving and ill. "Creatures" was the term that was used to call these human beings. Using this term seems very improper to use, and makes them seem like they are animals of some sort.

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  2. This should be a constant reminder of what these poor people had to endure for us to obtain and keep the freedoms we have today. Reading it, I was reminded a lot of the clip we watched today in class. Those scenes are going to be a constant reminder for me not only because of the horrific details that were shown but because everytime I think of it I'm going to think of how no one deserves to be put through that... ever.

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  3. Its hard to believe that people can treat another human being in such a way. Being crammed in such small spaces, fighting for just a drop of water.
    -Courtney P

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  4. It's hard to believe that people could be so cruel and heartless. I try to put myself in the slavers shoes but, its incomprehensible to me. If they thought of blacks as animals it still doesn't explain how they can watch them thrash about in their last stages of "fury and desperation". I can't even think of putting chickens in similar conditions yet, these slavers acted as though it was just an everyday thing. The slave driver was eager to use his whip. It makes no sense to me and never will. Slavery is something that needs to be taught more fully in schools, something that needs to always stay in our memories, every last cruel aspect, so that it is NEVER repeated!

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  5. I was surprised that the African slaves were treated like a non-human.... I can even feel that how painful it was. I should not be repeated anymore because this is not a proper thing that people should not do it. I think because of their braveness we are here now. I would like to learn more about history!

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  6. It is truly tragic to read documentation of the horrific manner in which slaves were handled, or mishandled. It seems that the personnell running the slaveships have no mercy or any kind of idea of how to act in a humane manner.

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  7. This kind of treatment is very inhumane.What happened to the African is very sad and horroble because no human should go through this pain.
    Yazmin R.

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  8. by reading this, it just makes me feel disgusted on how little human lives were valued during this time. what were these people guilty of? they had hearts, families, hopes, and dreams. who were these foreigners treating the africans like this? who placed them in such a superior position? because of things like this, we should be kissing the ground we walk on for not having to go through something as horrid as this. they said they were treated like livestock, but i dont know a person who would even treat an animal like that.

    -S.ARROYO

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  9. It is horrible what these people had been put through, the sailors on the ship treated the Africans like cattle. While I was reading this article I kept thinking about the video clip we saw in class. All of what the Africans got put through is very sad and disturbing.

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  10. reading this article brought nothing but saddness to my heart. i just cant cope with knowing that people could do something so cruel. I understand the way they felt against africans(believeing they were not part of the human being race) but even then could u treat an animal as cruel as they did the africans?
    -kim martinez

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  11. I can't even believe what i just read. I don't understand why anyone or even how anyone could ever be that cruel to another person. The african americans experienced a lifetime of horror. I feel so bad for them, they only had 23 inches or 13 inches of space to live in. These conditions were so awful and at the end where they say they tried to strangle each other or nail each others brains just so they could have breathing space.. i just can't even imagine it.
    -michelle yadegar

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  12. sadly the treatment of other human beings remain on the delusional concept of race. we mask our beliefs of superiority on concepts that crush diversity and put up walls that run only deep in biological factors. we must stop believing in races and start promoting diversity so that no other humans beings have to suffer what many groups have gone through.

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  13. Treatment of slaves throughout American History is just extremely saddening. The slaves on this ship and many other instances in American History were treated as if they were animals. It just broke my heart to read in this story of people being treated and abused as if they as humans didn't matter and in the end instead of looking out for each other it became the "survival of the fittest" due to the living condition, starvation, health condition, ect.

    Miyuki (Mic) Newhall

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