The Middle Passage journey – Part I
At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. Describe the experiences of the African captives during this Middle Passage journey.
2. Empathise with the plight of the African captives as they journeyed through the Middle Passage.
3. Comment on the varying perspectives of the different characters that experienced the Middle Passage journey in varying capacities – Alexander Falconbridge (surgeon) and James Barbot Jr (sailor).
In this week’s lesson, there will be the study of primary source documents related to the transatlantic trade in Africans. In analysing primary sources, one has to do the following:
a) Identify when the source was produced. What is its date? How close is its date to the date of the events to which it relates or to dates relevant to the topic being investigated?
b) Decipher the extent to which the author of the source was in a good position to provide first-hand information on the particular topic.
c) Identify what person, or group of persons, created the source. What basic attitudes, prejudices, and interests would he, she or they be likely to have? How and for what purposes did the source come into existence? Who was it written for or addressed to? Keep these points in mind when reading through the extracts. Extract #1 Alexander Falconbridge “THE MEN NEGROES...ARE...FASTENED TOGETHER...BY HANDCUFFS”
Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon aboard slave ships and later the governor of a British colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone, offers a vivid account of the Middle Passage.
“From the time of the arrival of the ships to their departure, which is usually about three months, scarce a day passes without some Negroes being purchased and carried on board; sometimes in small and sometimes in large numbers. The whole number taken on board depends on circumstances. In a voyage I once made, our stock of merchandise was exhausted in the purchase of about 380 Negroes, which was expected to have procured 500...
“The unhappy wretches thus disposed of are bought by the black traders at fairs, which are held for that purpose, at the distance of upwards of two hundred miles from the sea coast; and these fairs are said to be supplied from an interior part of the country. Many Negroes, upon being questioned relative to the places of their nativity, have asserted that they have travelled during the revolution of several moons (their usual method of calculating time) before they have reached the places where they were purchased by the black traders.
“About eight o’clock in the morning the Negroes are generally brought upon deck. Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to a ringbolt fixed in the deck, is run through the rings of the shackles of the men and then locked to another ringbolt fixed also in the deck. The diet of the Negroes while on board, consists chiefly of horse beans boiled to the consistency of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice and sometimes a small quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently taken from the provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make use of a sauce composed of palm oil mixed with flour, water and pepper, which the sailors call slabber-sauce. Yams are the favorite food of the Eboe [Ibo] or Bight Negroes, and rice or corn of those from the Gold or Windward Coast; each preferring the produce of their native soil ....
“They are commonly fed twice a day; about eight o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon. In most ships they are only fed with their own food once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs about the size of a small water bucket. They are placed round these tubs, in companies of ten to each tub, out of which they feed themselves with wooden spoons. These they soon lose and when they are not allowed others they feed themselves with their hands ...”
EXTRACT #2
James Barbot, Jr, a sailor aboard the English slaver Don Carlos, describes a slave uprising that took place aboard the vessel.
“About one in the afternoon, after dinner, we, according to custom caused them, one by one, to go down between decks, to have each his pint of water; most of them were yet above deck, many of them provided with knives, which we had indiscreetly given them two or three days before, as not suspecting the least attempt of this nature from them; others had pieces of iron they had torn off our forecastle door, as having premeditated a revolt, and seeing all the ship’s company, at best but weak and many quite sick, they had also broken off the shackles from several of their companions feet, which served them, as well as billets they had provided themselves with, and all other things they could lay hands on, which they imagin’d might be of use for this enterprise.
“Thus arm’d, they fell in crouds and parcels on our men, upon the deck unawares, and stabb’d one of the stoutest of us all, who receiv’d fourteen or fifteen wounds of their knives, and so expir’d. Next they assaulted our boatswain, and cut one of his legs so round the bone, that he could not move, the nerves being cut through; others cut our cook’s throat to the pipe, and others wounded three of the sailors, and threw one of them overboard in that condition, from the forecastle into the sea; who, however, by good providence, got hold of the bowline of the foresail, and sav’d himself...we stood in arms, firing on the revolted slaves, of whom we kill’d some, and wounded many: which so terrif’d the rest, that they gave way, dispersing themselves some one way and some another between decks, and under the forecastle; and many of the most mutinous, leapt over board, and drown’d themselves in the ocean with much resolution, shewing no manner of concern for life.
“Thus we lost twenty seven or twenty eight slaves, either kill’d by us, or drown’d; and having master’d them, caused all to go betwixt decks, giving them good words. The next day we had them all again upon deck, where they unanimously declar’d, the Menbombe slaves had been the contrivers of the mutiny, and for an example we caused about thirty of the ringleaders to be very severely whipt by all our men that were capable of doing that office .... ”