9781422277409

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Getting Here

The Middle Passage

The captains of ships that carried slaves to the New World did not care whether their passengers were comfortable. Slaves were kept in miserable conditions, crammed body-to-body in tiny spaces. They often did not have enough room to sit up, or have a place to go to the bathroom. But the captains did have to keep their cargo alive, and healthy enough that they could be sold for a profit. That meant they

near the same opportunities, rights, and freedoms as whites enjoyed. Not surprisingly, only a small number of native Africans immigrated to the United States during the century after the end of the Civil War, and most of those were white people from South Africa. By the 1960s, though, the world was changing. Up through the first half of the 20th century, many countries in Africa were under colonial had to feed them—and what’s more, they had to feed them something they would actually eat. Ship captains stocked corn for slaves who came from present-day Angola; rice for those from the areas of Senegal and The Gam- bia; and yams for slaves taken from modern Nigeria. Traders also noted that slaves had a “good stomach for beans.” A few lemons or limes were added to prevent scurvy, and occasionally some fish caught during the journey. The traders’ strategy did not always work. Captives often went on hunger strikes during the voyage, preferring to die rather than enter a life of slavery.