Summary Of The Middle Passage By Olaudah Equiano

“[The slave trade] is one of history’s most horrific chapters, showing the human capacity for both cruelty and insensitivity [as well as] strength and survival,” says The Middle Passage by Recovered Histories. In his narrative, Equiano discusses the miseries of the slave trade. Specifically in this section, the Middle Passage is told from his first-hand account. Several horrific facts have been revealed about the slave trade since slavery was dissolved over a hundred and fifty years ago. There are several stark, horrific facts about the Middle Passage which are revealed through historic facts as well as Equiano’s narrative. Not only did these people have to endure the terrifying and deadly Middle Passage, but before they bore these, they

“Often did I think many inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself,” Equiano states in his memoir The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. The Middle Passage by the Abolition Project confirms that many of the shelves the slaves were put into were under a meter high. This resulted in the slaves often being unable to sit up. “Women were often used sexually. Men were often chained in pairs, shackled wrist to wrist or ankle to ankle. People were crowded together, usually forced to lie on their backs with their heads between the legs of others. This meant they often had to lie in each other's feces, urine, and, in the case of dysentery, even blood,” states pbs.org. Equiano also states, “…rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again…some…took an opportunity and trying to get a little privately; but they were discovered and the attempt procured them some very severe

However, either way, losses in the life of the prisoners was extensive. One of the two philosophies was “loose packing,” which had less slaves on a ship in the hopes more would survive, verses “tight packing” in which they boarded as many slaves as possible onto the ship, believing that despite greater losses, there would be greater profit if there were a greater number. According to The Middle Passage by Discovering Bristol, “The average losses were between 10 and 20%, through sickness, suicide and even murder at the hands of the slave crew and captains. 10% means over 1,000,000 Africans died on board the ships, 20% represents over 2,000,000