Jesus fucking Christ, this was done by humans to humans. This is horrifying.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was, even by the low standards of the history of slavery, fucking horrific. It ranks up there with the Holocaust for sheer inhumanity.
And keep in mind: these ships took weeks to cross the ocean. It wasn’t like they were stuffed in the back of a truck for an afternoon, they were crammed in like sardines for weeks. Imagine when the seas get rough and the only reason they don’t go flying is because they are packed in so tight. It’s a miracle any of them made it alive and many of them didn’t.
Reason they would search for nails sticking out of the deck and use them to off themselves. I would too.
How did they even go to the toilet? Dod they really have to go on the floor, like animals in a stable? 🤢
Yes, they lived and died in their own shit and piss. The inhumanity is impossible for me to even imagine. If you’re ever in Ghana: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Coast_Castle
Good grief. This is Holocaust-level bad
we literally treat livestock better than this during transport, if only because livestock has value and dealing with nasty stuff is nasty
And that’s something i’ll never understand about people who are okay with this: it’s depraved to treat people like cattle, but to treat them worse goes beyond depravity and into being the very definition of evil. Presumably the perpetrators consider suffering a positive…
“Hm how can I convey this to children in our video game about the Atlantic slave trade… I know, lets add Slave-Tetris™ to our game”
Yes they actually built that
But the cowards removed it before release.
the fucking Tetris piece!
OP, thank you for posting this. I keep forgetting that not everyone has seen this in school, or been to a museum where this illustration is part of a bigger exhibit. It’s one of those things that, unfortunately, we need to keep shouting for the folks in the back row, just in case their school history books were heavily edited.
If you want to read about how horrific the conditions were, read Mutiny on the Black Prince.
I remember seeing this picture in my textbook in school and it was impossible for me to imagine the horror of being in their position. How anyone survived that, much less with their mind intact, is beyond me. I definitely wouldn’t have made it.
Horrific and monstrous. I try and remember it so I never forget how horrible I felt as a child learning about it and seeing this.
