Atlantic Slave Trade Dbq Essay

The Atlantic Slave Trade is remembered as a dark and cruel point in history, in which African Americans were treated as animals by inhuman and cruel men. During this time period the ideal shared by many white men was that of white supremacy, meaning that people with white skin are naturally better than those with dark skin. They also believed that it was their worldly duty to care for people with black skin. However, the majority of these men did not care for those they viewed as their subordinates. These cruel men viewed the black race as inhuman, however, it was those who had white skin that were the real inhumans, they were beasts. These evil men lacked the sympathy and compassion that would make them human and as result they enslaved, broke

At the beginning of their slavery, the unfortunate Africans were thrown onto unsanitary slave ships that were so overcrowded slaves were often piled on top of one another. Europeans did not treat the slaves like humans, who deserve and need their own space, they abused them and heaped them together in unsanitary piles. The fullness of these ships is depicted in the picture of a slave ship in Document 5 that shows how the bodies were sorted together. The close proximity and the unsanitary conditions, that resulted from the neglect of slave traders, lead to disease and sickness that broke their internal body and often stole their lives. Many slave traders tried to hide a slaves sickness in order to sell them at a market. One example of this occurred when a ship’s captain ordered the “ship’s surgeons to stop the anus of each of [the slaves infected with flux] with oakum” (Document 10). This treatment was painful and humiliating to the already sick and suffering slaves. This practice highlighted the selfishness of the Europeans, who deceived other and hurt slaves in order to help themselves earn money. These cruel men did not abandon the chain methods on the boats either. The slave traders would chain poor slaves “to the decks by the neck and legs”, the position and feeling of entrapment resulted in so much pain and discomfort that meaning were “driven to a frenzy” (Document 6). This meant that slaves would begin to lose their minds due to the horrible and cruel treatment they received. Even slaves who had already survived the Middle Passage and had been sold to masters would also often lose their minds due to their despair and abuse. Slave masters and overseers did not respect or care if their slave was happy, they only cared that they were working their fields. Often slaves would be slashed with whips and clubs that broke their bodies and