Experiencing the Slave Trade

Slavery was a memorable experience for all who participated in it. Whether it was those employed with the job of kidnapping innocent Africans for the purpose of transporting them away from their homelands or the Africans being unwillingly taken from all that they considered familiar, each memory is one full of deception, pain, brutality and despair.

The idea of using deception as a means of capturing Africans for the purpose of sale was reflected upon in two of the excerpts. Alexander Falconbridge, in his excerpt from An Account of the Slave Trade (London, 1788), recalled several stories told to him by captives aboard the ship in which he was traveling in regards to how they were captured. Black traders wooed these Africans with drink and entertainment and appealed to them easily because they, due to their similar skin color, did not seem like the enemy. Once comfortable with their guards down they were disappointingly accosted and taken into custody of the traders. Others were kidnapped as they tended to their daily routines without any warning. In A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture (New London, n.p., 1798), Venture Smith, the son of an African prince and a captive himself, recalls a rather different memory of deceit used to capture his own family. While they were not lured towards captivity by false friendships or frightening confrontations, they were deceived in that, after being told of the pending army invasion and given an opportunity to negotiate their freedom; the army reneged on their deal. After his father had given them money and herds of animals, they were still faced with the decision to retreat or risk capture. They were eventually captured.

Another facet of the Transatlantic slave trade that was woven into the readings was the horrid physical abuse that was endured by the African captives. Falconbridge recalls traders beating Negroes if they were rejected for sale by the captains of these voyages even if it were due to matters out of their control such as age or sickness. Olaudah Equiano's account of his trip from Africa to America in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vasa, the African (New York, n.p. 1791), describes some of the brutality experienced by captives on the ships. When he refused to eat, Equiano was beaten severely by the white men who offered him the food. When three of the captives dove off of the ship, preferring death to the horrible conditions