Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Life as a Slave on the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Life as a Slave During the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Essential Questions:
1. What was the Transatlantic Slave Trade?
2. What was life like for slaves?
CI 362- Elementary and Middle Social Science Methods
Southern Illinois University
5th grade level
Kate Crombar
Questions for Investigation:
1. What were the slave trade ships like?
2. How were slaves treated once they were off the ship?
Discussion Questions:
1. What made slave ship conditions unbearable?
2. What behaviors were committed against slaves?
Introduction
Standards, Introduction, & Our Thesis
IL Social Science Standards
Illinois Social Science Standards
SS.IS.3.3-5. Determine sources representing multiple points of view that will assist in answering essential questions.
SS.IS.5.3-5. Develop claims using evidence from multiple sources to answer essential questions.
SS.IS.6.3-5. Construct and critique arguments and explanations using reasoning, examples, and details from multiple sources.
Thesis
Thesis
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was an inhumane, horrific event in history that caused unnecessary pain, illness, and death to innocent people.
Why? Let's take a look at some background information.
Introduction to the Transatlantic Slave Trade
What was the Transatlantic Slave Trade?
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was an exchange of goods or products for enslaved people from Africa by Europeans. The trade triangle involved three continents. European capital, African labour, and American land and resources combined to supply a European market. Later, America also made direct voyages to Africa for slaves as well. African Americans were viewed as a product during this time period, rather than a living being. (The Transatlantic Slave Trade).
What was the Transatlantic Slave Trade?
Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the most costly in human life of all long-distance global migrations. The first Africans forced to work in the New World left from Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, not from Africa. The first voyage carrying enslaved people direct from Africa to the Americas probably sailed in 1526 (Mintz).
What do you notice? Are they wearing clothes? Are they wearing shoes? Are they being guarded? What else do you see?
This image pictures 6 African-Americans being chained together by the neck and captured from their homeland. The "Interior" referenced in the title is referring the middle of Africa, where they were captured from.
We see that conditions were not great from this primary source. However, can one source prove an entire thesis? Let's look at other sources to investigate the slave ships:
Slave Trade Ships
Question for Investigation #1: What were the slave trade ships like?
Let's look at our first main primary source:
Slave Ships
[This] is a drawing of a slave ship. Enslaved people were often chained and forced to ride in cramped conditions in the bottom of the ship. They were only occasionally allowed to the top deck for fresh air. Enslaved people were often throw overboard if they were sick or being punished (Martell & Bryson, 2020).
Let's take a look at what life was like once they were off the ship...
First-Hand Account from Olaudah Equiano
First-Hand Account
“The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us….This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable” (Immigration and Relocation).
Olaudah Equiano was a young boy living in Africa when he was kidnapped, enslaved, and put on one of these ships to be sold. He describes his experience in this source:
Slave Ship Layout
Note: There were multiple slave trade ships, not just one. This blueprint shows just one ship, not every ship. The ships were very similar because they wanted to fit as many enslaved people as possible.
Many books showed plans on how to store the most enslaved people on a ship (like this one below). Imagine what it would have been like to be forced on a ship like this for over two weeks, which is the time it took to travel from Africa to the Americas (Martell & Bryson, 2020).
Ship Blueprint
The Journey From Africa to an Unknown Place
The Journey on
the Ship
“The Middle Passage was dangerous and horrific. The sexes were separated; men, women, and children were kept naked, packed close together; and the men were chained for long periods. About 12 percent of those who embarked did not survive the voyage” (Mintz).
Disease on the Ship
“The air in the hold was foul and putrid. Seasickness was common and the heat was oppressive. The lack of sanitation and suffocating conditions meant there was a constant threat of disease. Epidemics of fever, dysentery (the ‘flux’) and smallpox were frequent. Captives endured these conditions for about two months, sometimes longer” (Liverpool International Slavery Museum, 2015).
Disease & Illness
on Board
Thrown Overboard?
Thrown Overboard
“Heading for Jamaica in 1781, the ship Zong was nearing the end of its voyage. It had been twelve weeks since it had sailed from the west African coast with its cargo of 417 slaves. Water was running out. Then, compounding the problem, there was an outbreak of disease. The ship's captain, reasoning that the slaves were going to die anyway, made a decision. In order to reduce the owner's losses he would throw overboard the slaves thought to be too sick to recover. The voyage was insured, but the insurance would not pay for sick slaves or even those killed by illness. However, it would cover slaves lost through drowning. The captain gave the order; 54 Africans were chained together, then thrown overboard. Another 78 were drowned over the next two days. By the time the ship had reached the Caribbean, 132 persons had been murdered” (Public Broadcasting Service).
Let's look at some more sources to understand what the life of a slave was like.
Life on Land as a Slave
Question for Investigation #2: How were slaves treated once they were off the ship?
Let's look at our second main primary source:
Life on Land
Enslaved people were treated as property, much like a car or house today. They were auctioned off to the highest bidders. They could be bought and sold several times during their lives. Sometimes parents were sold away from their children and families were broken up. Enslaved people were also sometimes rented out to other plantations. When they were married, enslaved people would often say “until death or distance,” since they had no control of where they lived or who owned them (Martell & Bryson, 2020).
Why African-Americans?
Slave Auctions
Treatment
First-Hand Account
Violence Against Slaves
Citations
Citations
A chain of slaves travelling from the interior. Encyclopedia Virginia. (2021, February 11). https://encyclopediavirginia.org/1549hpr-3df5b2e2989fe24/
Hallam, J. (2004). The Slave Experience: Men, Women, and Gender. Thirteen- PBS. https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/history.html
Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History: African. The Library of Congress. (n.d.). https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/african/beginnings/
Liverpool International Slavery Museum. (2015, August 25). Life on board slave ships. Black History Month 2023. https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/history-of-slavery/life-on-board-slave-ships/
Martell, C. C., & Bryson, J. R. (2020). Open Social Studies An Inquiry-Based and Literacy-Focused K-6 Curriculum Student Sourcebook Level: Grade 5. UMASS Boston & University of Boston.
Mintz, S. (n.d.). The Gilder Lehrman Institute of american history. Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery
Public Broadcasting Service. (n.d.). Historical Documents: Living Africans Thrown Overboard. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1h280.html
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. (1800 - 1899).Woman and child on auction block Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6fb48e0e-0795-4ac1-e040-e00a18061701
Shoberl, Frederic. A Chain of Slaves travelling from the Interior. 1821. Library of Virginia, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/1549hpr-3df5b2e2989fe24/
The Transatlantic Slave Trade. National Museums Liverpool. (n.d.). https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/transatlantic-slave-trade