Slave ship

Slave ships were large cargo ships specially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves, especially newly captured African slaves to the Americas.

Only a few decades after the arrival of Europeans to America, demand for unpaid labor to work plantations made slave-trading a profitable business. The peak time of slave ships to the Atlantic passage was between the 18th and early-19th centuries, when large plantations developed in the colonies of America.

In order to achieve profit, the owners of the ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy led to a high mortality rate, on average 15% and up to a third of captives. Often the ships, also known as Guineamen, transported hundreds of slaves, who were chained tightly to plank beds. For example, the slave ship Henrietta Marie carried about 200 slaves on the long Middle Passage. They were confined to cargo holds with each slave chained with little room to move.

The most significant routes of the slave ships led from the north-western and western coasts of Africa to South America and the south-east coast of what is today the United States, and the Caribbean. As many as 20 million Africans were transported by ship. The transportation of slaves from Africa to America was known as the Middle Passage.

Owners of slave ships did their best to hold as many enslaved people as possible, cramming, chaining, and selective grouping techniques were used to maximize space and make travel more profitable.Those that were on the ships were underfed and treated with brutality which caused some to die before even arriving at their destination. These people also were not treated as human: living like animals throughout their long voyage to the New World. The enslaved were naked and shackled together with several different types of chains, stored on the floor beneath bunks with little to no room to move due to the crammed conditions. They spent a large portion of time pinned to floorboards which would wear skin on their elbows down to the bone. Firsthand accounts from former slaves, such as Olaudah Equiano, describe the horrific conditions that enslaved people were forced to endure.

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