Click2History - Slave Voices - Chapter 4

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>SLAVE VOICES</p> <p><font size=4>CHAPTER 4 - PASSAGE TO THE NEW WORLD</font></p> </font> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Many historians have described what it <i>must</i> have been like for kidnapped Africans to sail across the Atlantic. Olaudah Equiano tells us what it <i>was</i> like:</p><ul> <li>Children were <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201069.gif" target="_blank"><b>kidnapped</b></a> from their homes, often when their parents were not there. A similar event happened to Olaudah and his sister. He was eleven years old.</li><br><br> <li>At some point, before he sailed, Equiano was <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201070.gif" target="_blank"><b>separated</b></a> from his sister. It was a frightening <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201071.gif" target="_blank"><b>event</b></a> for both of them.</li><br><br> <li>The first time the young lad set eyes on a slave ship, he was <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201084.gif" target="_blank"><b>terrified</b></a>.</li><br><br> <li>He thought he was brought on board to be <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201085.gif" target="_blank"><b>eaten</b></a> by the white men:<br><br> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>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 no longer doubted my fate and quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted...I asked if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair?</b></i></blockquote><br> <li><font face="arial, helvetica">Since he did not live on the African coast, and had never seen a ship, Equiano <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201088.gif" target="_blank"><b>thought</b></a> sailing happened by magic.</li><br><br> <li>Conditions on board ship were <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201086.gif" target="_blank"><b>so bad</b></a> he would have jumped overboard had he been able.</li><br><br> <li>Equiano <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201087.gif" target="_blank"><b>learned</b></a> he would be taken far away to work for the white men in their country.</li><br><br> <li>During the crossing, the stench below deck, nearly unbearable on the coast, became "<a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201089.gif" target="_blank"><b>pestilential</b></a>."</li><br><br> <li>Many of the kidnapped Africans <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201090.gif" target="_blank"><b>thought</b></a> death was preferable to living on a slave ship.</li><br><br> <li>Some of the captives <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201091.gif" target="_blank"><b>jumped</b></a> into the water, committing suicide. More would have followed had the crew not stopped them.</li><br><br> <li>Equiano’s ship <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201092.gif" target="_blank"><b>arrived</b></a> in Barbados.</li><br><br> <li>He, and the other captured Africans, were <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/rbc/rbcmisc/ody/ody0201/0201094.gif" target="_blank"><b>sold</b></a> as slaves on the Caribbean island.</li></ul> <p><a href="http://pages.britishlibrary.net/brycchan.carey/equiano/biog.htm" target="_blank"><b>Olaudah Equiano</b></a> spent many years <a href="http://pages.britishlibrary.net/brycchan.carey/equiano/map1.htm" target="_blank"><b>at sea</b></a> as the slave of a naval man. Although he became a freeman in 1766, for the sum of 40 pounds sterling, <a href="http://pages.britishlibrary.net/brycchan.carey/equiano/" target="_blank"><b>he</b></a> never saw his parents or sister again.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="slave_voices_ch3.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="slave_voices_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="slave_voices_ch5.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>