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The Middle Passage is when Africans were
brought over on slave ships to work on plantations. The journey that nearly
60 million Africans made took 5 to 12 weeks. If a slave died on a ship,
which 40 million of the 60 did, their body was thrown overboard to the
waiting sharks. On the ship Zong, slaves who were thought to have a deadly
disease were chained together and thrown overboard to drown. Sometimes,
the slaves would kill the captain and get control of the ship. One example
of this is the Amistad, though the Africans were caught and tried for murder.
The charges were dropped.
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On a ship, Africans were chained together and kept like cargo. They only had about 18 inches of headroom, so they couldn't sit up. Because the Africans didn't know where they were going, they were terrified and many tried to commit suicide. But the crew wouldn't let them. They couldn't jump overboard so they tried to starve themselves. When they tried this, they were tortured until they ate. If that didn't work, they used a speculum orum which held their mouths open. Sometimes the slaves were given orders they didn't understand because they spoke a different language. They were punished because they couldn't do what they were told to. The Middle Passage lasted from 1600 to 1800. |
| Amistad | Middle Passage |
| and | Slavery |
