AFAS 220

Homework #2

Austin Lara
9/25/15
Homework #2

The Middle Passage of African slaves on their way to America

was one of brutal cruelty and the harshest of conditions. Olaudah
Equiano, an enslaved African American, narrates his life on a slave ship
coming to America in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano. He explains in chapter 2 how on slave ships the slaves are
chained together and so closely packed that the stench of unwashed
and dying individuals became absolutely pestilential and the shrieks
of women, the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of
horror almost inconceivable (Equiano). In essence the slaves are
treated like animals that are incapable of having emotions. Going with
the theory that chattel slavery is indeed based on ownership of human
beings as an inferior race, Equiano clearly explains how the slaves
were treated as though they were not human beings. Reading this
narrative gives an image of pigs on a farm; forced to live in their own
excrement and forced to eat at certain times, the slaves lives were
equated with those of animals and not of humans. Further proof of this
theory comes from Alexander Falconbridge, a British surgeon who was
on board four different slave ship ventures. In his narrative, An Account
of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa by Alexander Falconbridge, he
explains how traders of slaves that were objected by captains of slave
ships based on their physical health, age, or any inability to work
frequently beat those Negroes [and] have frequently been known to

AFAS 220
Homework #2

Austin Lara
9/25/15

put them to death (Falconbridge). This inhumane treatment of slaves

goes to explain slave traders inability to see African Americans as a
race equal to white Americans. The willingness to beat and even kill
another human being based solely upon their physical condition is not
justifiable under any circumstance whatsoever. However, African
American slaves were not seen as people of the same caliber as the
white Americans, and thus were dealt with and disposed of like
animals. Not only were they property, but they were property that was
inferior to them that could be treated in any manner stemming from
the idea that this inferior race has no value unless it can work and
perform whatever the master needs. Lastly, a log book from captain
William Miller shows the cruelty of white Americans towards black
slaves and through it, how they are treated as an inferior race. He
states in his log book that [His] Black [his black servant] called John
Prince gave an impertinent answer to Mr Thomas 3rd Mate for which im
giving him Correction. Told me he would be up with me for it upon
which I put him in Irons and slaptd down on the Quarter Deck and put
him on Bread and Water Prisoners fare til he knows better and to
equivalat what he said (Miller). Through this it is explained how the
captain punished the black slave for talking back to another ship mate.
Because the slave talked back, the captain put him in chains and beat
him on the deck as well as feeding him only bread and water for
several days. This portrays the inequality between the white Americans

AFAS 220
Homework #2

Austin Lara
9/25/15

and the African Americans in which the slaves are treated in the way
animals are treated. The beating of another to simply teach a lesson is
never ethical among human beings, however the slaves were treated
as less of a human being (i.e. as an inferior race). Almost all slaves
were treated in this manner because it was perceived that they did not
deserve the same rights the white Americans deserved based solely on
the color of their skin. Through all these examples it is portrayed that
chattel slaver was indeed based on ownership of human beings, not
only as commodities, but as an inferior race.

AFAS 220
Homework #2

Austin Lara
9/25/15
Works Cited

Equiano, Olaudah, and Robert J. Allison. The Interesting Narrative of

the Life of Olaudah

Equiano. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1995.

Print.
Falconbridge, Alexander. An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of
Africa by

Alexander Falconbridge, Late Surgeon in the African Trade.

London: Printed and

Sold by James Phillips, George-Yard, Lombard-

Street, 1788. Print.

Miller, William. "PortCities Bristol." The Logbook from a Slave Ship.
N.p., n.d. Web. 25

Sept. 2015.