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Essay On The Middle Passage

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Argument paper. The Middle Passage is the part of the trade, where Africans, tightly packed on ships, were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies. The journey lasted for several months, at this time the enslaved people basically lay in chains in rows on the floor of the ship 's hold. Genocide, in turn, does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of the nation, except for the massacres of all members of the nation. So can we identify the Middle Passage as an act of genocide? The term "genocide" was coined in 1943 by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who combined the Greek word “genos” (race or tribe) with the Latin word "cide" (kill). Having learned the horrors of the Holocaust in his own experience, specifically …show more content…

"Was there a plan for the destruction of these slaves?" Some people will answer "yes." Many argue that the slaves were ill-treated, poorly fed, many of them were dropped from the boat. All this is associated with a very high mortality, which, according to many, is synonymous with genocide. However, in fact, the slave-traders in Europe needed a manpower, not the corpses of people. One of the reasons is that it is very expensive and troublesome to transport a huge number of slaves across the ocean. People were treated horribly, but in those days such actions were not crimes. Even if we consider them as crimes, they can not be regarded as …show more content…

Some people tried to starve, but the crew forced them to take food, beating them, tormenting them with hot coal or forcing them to open their mouths with special tools or break their teeth. The mortality caused by various diseases was very high. More than 20 percent have died from various epidemics or committed suicide. Venture Smith, describing his test, wrote: "After the usual passage, except for the great death from pox that erupted on board, we arrived on the island of Barbados, but when we reached it, out of two hundred and sixty that sailed from Africa, not more than two hundred alive.

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