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    Document A: Portuguese Textbook (Modified) : Source: History For Grade Ten, Volume 2, Published in Portugal in 1994

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    Igor Radulovic
    The Portuguese textbook portrayed the Middle Passage as dangerous for both slaves and crew, comparing their experiences. It referred to the slave trade as "migrations" which downplayed the forced nature of the transport. The slave ship captain Phillips noted the high mortality rates for slaves which financially ruined voyages. He described efforts to care for slaves but conditions led to disease. The slave ship doctor Falconbridge provided graphic details of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that caused widespread sickness and death among slaves.

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    Document A: Portuguese Textbook (Modified) : Source: History For Grade Ten, Volume 2, Published in Portugal in 1994

    Uploaded by

    Igor Radulovic
    72 views8 pages
    The Portuguese textbook portrayed the Middle Passage as dangerous for both slaves and crew, comparing their experiences. It referred to the slave trade as "migrations" which downplayed the forced nature of the transport. The slave ship captain Phillips noted the high mortality rates for slaves which financially ruined voyages. He described efforts to care for slaves but conditions led to disease. The slave ship doctor Falconbridge provided graphic details of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that caused widespread sickness and death among slaves.

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    Middle Pasage

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    The Portuguese textbook portrayed the Middle Passage as dangerous for both slaves and crew, comparing their experiences. It referred to the slave trade as "migrations" which downplayed the forced nature of the transport. The slave ship captain Phillips noted the high mortality rates for slaves which financially ruined voyages. He described efforts to care for slaves but conditions led to disease. The slave ship doctor Falconbridge provided graphic details of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that caused widespread sickness and death among slaves.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    72 views8 pages

    Document A: Portuguese Textbook (Modified) : Source: History For Grade Ten, Volume 2, Published in Portugal in 1994

    Uploaded by

    Igor Radulovic
    The Portuguese textbook portrayed the Middle Passage as dangerous for both slaves and crew, comparing their experiences. It referred to the slave trade as "migrations" which downplayed the forced nature of the transport. The slave ship captain Phillips noted the high mortality rates for slaves which financially ruined voyages. He described efforts to care for slaves but conditions led to disease. The slave ship doctor Falconbridge provided graphic details of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that caused widespread sickness and death among slaves.

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    Document A: Portuguese Textbook (Modified)

    Portugal was one of the first European countries to engage in the African slave trade.
    Portuguese ships played a key role in the slave trade between Europe, Africa, and the
    Americas for several centuries. The following excerpt comes from a Portuguese high
    school textbook.

    The development of the slave trade became part of the process of settling the American
    continent. In comparison with Indian slavery, the blacks had a better physical capacity
    and resisted better to the climate, two important factors to justify the successive waves
    of slaves that left Africa towards America.

    The time between the moment the slaves were bought and when they arrived at port
    was very dangerous not only for the European traders but for the slaves as well. Revolts
    and disturbances occurred frequently. Crossing the Atlantic was extremely difficult for
    slaves. First there was not enough room in the boats. They suffered from heat, thirst,
    and a lack of hygiene. Even the whites had difficulty with these things.

    At the time the European states did not recognize the negative consequences of these
    massive migrations. On the other hand, a new diverse cultural situation originated on
    the American continent that resulted from the multiplicity of mixed races and cultures.
    Brazil became the most expressive model of the process carried out by the Portuguese
    as it melted Indian, white, and black in a complex mix of ethnicities and cultures.

    Source: History for Grade Ten, Volume 2, published in Portugal in 1994.

    Vocabulary

    hygiene: cleanliness
    expressive: effectively conveying an idea
    Document B: Slave Ship Captain (Modified)

    Captain Thomas Phillips transported slaves from Africa to Barbados on the


    ship Hannibal in 1693. The ship left the African island of São Tomé on August
    25th and arrived in Barbados on November 4th.The Royal African Company of
    London funded the trip. This is an excerpt from his journal about the voyage.

    There happened such sickening and mortality among my poor men and
    Negroes. Of the first we buried 14, and of the last 320, which was a great
    detriment to our voyage, the Royal African Company losing ten pounds by
    every slave that died. . . .

    The distemper which my men as well as the blacks mostly died of was the
    white flux. . . . The Negroes are so vulnerable to the small-pox that few ships
    that carry them escape without it, and sometimes it makes vast havoc and
    destruction among them. But though we had 100 at a time sick of it . . . we lost
    not above a dozen by it. . . .

    But what the smallpox spared, the flux swept off, to our great regret, after all
    our pains and care to give [the slaves] their messes, . . . keeping their
    lodgings as clean and sweet as possible, and enduring so much misery and
    stench so long among creatures nastier than swine, only to be defeated by
    their mortality. . . .

    No gold-finders can endure so much noisome slavery as they do who carry


    Negroes. . . . We endure twice the misery; and yet by their mortality our
    voyages are ruined.

    Source: Thomas Phillips, A Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1732.

    Vocabulary

    mortality: death, especially on a large scale


    distemper: disorder or disease
    white flux: intestinal infection that caused intense diarrhea

    messes: meals
    swine: pigs
    gold-finders: individuals seeking wealth
    noisome: unpleasant
    Document C: Slave Ship Doctor (Modified)

    Alexander Falconbridge served as a doctor (known as the surgeon on ships)


    on British slave ships during the 1780s. He later wrote a book, An Account of
    the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, about his experiences. The book
    became popular among abolitionists and he later worked with the Anti-Slavery
    Society. These are excerpts from his book.

    The men negroes, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately
    fastened together, two and two, by hand-cuffs on their wrists, and by irons
    riveted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks. . . . They
    are frequently stowed so close, they can only lie on their sides. . . .

    In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets [for human
    waste]. . . . It often happens, that those who are placed at a distance from the
    buckets . . . tumble over their companions because they are shackled. . . . In
    this distressed situation . . . they give up and relieve themselves as they lie…

    Their food is served up to them in tubs, about the size of a small water bucket.
    They are placed around these tubs in companies of ten . . . If negroes refused
    to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel,
    and placed so near their lips, as to scorch and burn them…

    The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the negroes during the


    passage, are hard to describe. . . . The exclusion of the fresh air is among the
    least tolerable. . . . The floor of their rooms was so covered with blood and
    mucus because of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the
    power of the human imagination to picture to itself a situation more dreadful or
    disgusting.

    The surgeons employed in the Guinea trade, are generally driven to engage
    in so disagreeable a job by their financial situations.

    Source: Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast


    of Africa, 1788.

    Vocabulary

    riveted: metal bolted together

    stowed: put in a particular place

    shackled: chained
    take sustenance: eat

    flux: intestinal infection that caused intense diarrhea


    Guinea trade: slave trade
    Document D: Slave Ship Diagram

    This is part of a diagram depicting the British slave ship Brookes after the
    passage of the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788. This law, which sought to
    improve conditions on slave ships, was passed in response to rising
    opposition to the slave trade in England. This document depicts how many
    slaves could be placed on this ship. With 6’ by 1’4” allowed for each man,
    5’10” by 1’4” allowed for each woman, and 5’ by 1’2” allowed for each boy, the
    ship could hold 454 slaves. Before Britain began regulating the slave trade,
    the ship reportedly carried as many as 609 slaves.

    Source: “Stowage of the slave ship ‘Brookes’ under the Regulated Slave
    Trade Act of 1788.”
    Document E: Autobiography of a Former Slave (Modified)

    Olaudah Equiano was born in West Africa. As a young boy, he was kidnapped
    by an African tribe and sold to European slave traders, who took him to
    Virginia. He eventually purchased his freedom and moved to England, where
    he became active in the abolition movement. He later wrote an autobiography
    describing his experiences as a slave. Recently, a historian located evidence
    indicating that Equiano was actually born in South Carolina. However, other
    historians maintain that there is strong evidence corroborating Equiano’s
    account. Moreover, this is one of the only accounts of the Middle passage
    from the perspective of a slave. These are excerpts from Equiano’s
    autobiography.

    I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a smell in my
    nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the
    loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low
    that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now
    wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the
    white men offered me food; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me
    fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet,
    while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this
    kind before. . . .

    The crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the
    decks, in case we would leap into the water: and I have seen some of these
    poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly
    whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself. . . .

    I feared I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I
    thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such
    instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shown towards us blacks, but also
    to some of the whites themselves. One white man in particular I saw, when we
    were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near
    the foremast, that he died . . . and they tossed him over the side. . . . This
    made me fear these people the more.

    Source: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah


    Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, the African, 1789.

    Vocabulary

    loathsomeness: unpleasantness
    windlass: machine used to raise the anchor

    flogged: whipped
    Middle Passage Guiding Questions Document A: Portuguese Textbook

    1. (Sourcing) Where was this textbook written? How might this have influenced
    how it portrayed the Middle Passage?

    2. (Close reading) According to the textbook, “The time between the moment the
    slaves were bought and when they arrived at port was very dangerous not
    only for the European traders but for the slaves as well.” Why might the
    textbook’s authors have chosen to compare the experience of the ship’s crew
    to the experience of the slaves?

    3. (Close reading) Why do you think the textbook used the word “migrations” to
    describe the Atlantic slave trade?

    Document B: Slave Ship Captain

    1. (Sourcing) Who was Phillips? How might his background have influenced
    what he wrote about the Middle Passage?

    2. (Close reading) According to Phillips, what did the ship’s crew do for the
    slaves?

    3. (Close reading) According to Phillips, why was being a slave trader such an
    unpleasant job?
    Document C: Slave Ship Doctor

    1. (Sourcing) Who was Falconbridge? How might his background have


    influenced what he wrote about the Middle Passage?

    2. (Close reading) How might the conditions on the ship have been connected to
    the diseases that were so common among slaves?

    3. (Close reading) Why do you think Falconbridge said that most surgeons only
    worked on slave ships because of their financial situations?

    Document D: Slave Ship Diagram

    1. (Sourcing) Why was this diagram produced?

    Document E: Autobiography of a Former Slave

    1. (Sourcing) Who was Equiano? How might his background have influenced
    what he wrote about the Middle Passage?

    2. (Close reading) Why do you think slaves were punished for not eating?
    Document Close reading Corroboration Reliability

    According to this How is this Why might this be


    document, what account similar or a reliable source to
    were 2-3 ways different from the understand the
    people other documents? Middle Passage?
    experienced the Why not?
    Middle Passage?

    A: Portuguese
    Textbook

    B: Slave Ship
    Captain

    C: Slave Ship
    Doctor

    D: Slave Ship
    Diagram

    E:
    Autobiography
    of a Former
    Slave

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