On the Middle Passage
Crossing the Atlantic from Africa was called the 'Middle Passage' of the 'triangular trade'. It often took two months, during which time the slave ship sailed alone.
A slave revolt on board was the greatest fear of the small crew of the ship. To keep control, they carried pistols and cutlasses. They often whipped the slaves with a 'cat o' nine tails' for the slightest wrong. The men were separated from the women and children by a high wooden wall. They were always kept shackled with iron leg chains.
Thomas Smith from Arbroath was a boy apprentice on the slave ship Ann, carrying 144 enslaved Africans (1761). One night they broke their chains in a bid to regain their freedom. After a desperate fight, his crew were beaten back to the stern of the ship and just managed to escape with their lives on the longboat. Forty years later, Scottish Abolitionists visited him in Arbroath to gather evidence for their campaign.
This is what Thomas told them:
'All the males were forcibly branded with a hot iron and loaded down with heavy shackles. Completely naked, they were chained together in tens by the neck, hands and feet: bound down with irons, and crushed almost unto death, and all for the purpose of maintaining due subordination, as it is called, and preserving the peace and safety of everyone onboard.'
At night the male slaves were locked below deck. This is what Olaudah Equiano recalled as a slave on board ship:
'The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, which had now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children fell, and were almost suffocated.'
In the morning they were dragged up and their shackles inspected. Any slaves who had died during the night were unchained and thrown overboard. Their bodies were quickly eaten by the sharks that followed every slave ship.
After that, it was time for breakfast. According to Thomas, this was usually a boiled mash of horse beans and yams. Anyone who refused to eat was severely whipped.
Here are his memories of working during feeding time :
'The wooden barricade 'was sixteen foot high, full of iron spikes, with a door on the starboard side with an iron chain upon it, to prevent any of them getting through'. All food was passed through the door.
The Black Women use broad sticks (as spoons), which they turn round licking them with their fingers, and calling out, 'Suffie, Suffie, Grand'; then a man with a 'cat of nine tails' gives them a scourge, which makes them cry out, 'Cush, Cush'. When they go forward with the food, there is another man placed at the door of the barricade with a cudgel in hand, the chain is slackened to let the metal food bucket pass through to the male slaves. Then they all fall down ten in number around the bucket and they have no spoons but their fingers. When all is over, the Doctor then holds the cat (of nine tails) in his hands, when the whole company give three cheers, which is all they have for their grace.'