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Document – Olaudah Equiano Describes the Middle Passage
Analyze the source by answering the questions, and Incorporate what you’ve learned in the lesson, and use the general historical questions as a guideline: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How? About twofifthy words of your analysis should suffice.
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Olaudah Equiano Describes the Middle Passage
The slave trade between Africa and the Americas involved the horrors of capture and the Middle Passage, a harrowing two-month voyage across the Atlantic. In the account below, Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)—a west African who was captured by slave raiders when he was 10 years old—describes the ocean journey. He survived the voyage and twenty-one years of slavery before purchasing his freedom.
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea and a slave ship which was then riding at anchor and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew, and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits and that they were going to kill me….
I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; 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, if I could have gotten over the nettings I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and besides, the crew used to watch very closely over those of us 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. This indeed was often the case with myself….
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, 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. Those of us that were the most active were in a moment put down under the deck, and there was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her and get the boat to go after the slaves. However, two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other and afterward flogged him unmercifully for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner, we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships that are inseparable from this accursed trade.
from: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, 2 vols. (London, 1789).
Analyze the Source
- How are captured Africans treated on the slave ship?
- In what ways do they try to resist?
