Middle Passage

[4] With the growing abolitionist movement in Europe and the Americas, the transatlantic slave trade gradually declined until being fully abolished in the second-half of the 19th century.

An estimated 19% of them died during voyage, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself during the process of capturing and transporting slaves to the coast.

[10] The "Middle Passage" was considered a time of in-betweenness where captive Africans forged bonds of kinship, which then created forced transatlantic communities.

[12] African kings, warlords, and private kidnappers sold captives to Europeans who held several coastal forts.

The captives were usually force-marched to these ports along the western coast of Africa, where they were held for sale to the European or American slave traders in the barracoons.

In addition to physical sickness, many of the enslaved became too depressed to eat or function efficiently due to loss of freedom, family, security, and their own humanity.

The need for profits in the 18th-century Atlantic market economy drove changes in ship designs and in managing human cargo, which included enslaved Africans and the mostly European crew.

The new designs that allowed ships to navigate faster and into rivers' mouths ensured access to many more enslaving posts along the West African coast.

[22] The monetary value of enslaved Africans on any given American auction-block during the mid-18th century ranged between $800 and $1,200, which in modern times would be equivalent to $32,000–48,000 per person ($100 then is now worth $4,000 due to inflation).

This reduction in the ratio of enslaved Africans to ship tonnage was designed to increase the amount of space per person and thus improve the survival chances of everyone on board.

These open deck designs increased airflow and thus helped improve survival rates, diminishing potential investment losses.

While this was better than no medicines, and given the fact that many crew members at least had some idea of how disease was spread, without the inclusion of medical personnel the mortality rate was still very high in the 18th century.

[24] Treatment of the enslaved was horrific due to the captured African men and women being considered less than human; to slavers, they were "cargo", or "goods", and treated as such.

The crew decided to drown some slaves at sea, to conserve water and allow the owners to collect insurance for lost cargo.

The Zong incident became fuel for the abolitionist movement and a major court case, as the insurance company refused to compensate for the loss.

While the enslaved were kept fed and supplied with drink as healthy slaves were more valuable, if resources ran low on the long, unpredictable voyages, the crew received preferential treatment.

[26] Pregnant women on the ships who delivered their babies aboard risked the chance of their children being killed in order for the mothers to be sold.

[30] Over the centuries, some African peoples, such as the Kru, came to be understood as holding substandard value as slaves, because they developed a reputation for being too proud to be enslaved, and for attempting suicide immediately upon losing their freedom.

In fact, on board the Hubridas, what began as murmurs and morphed into song erupted before long into the shouts and cries of coordinated revolt.

[33] While the owners and captains of slave ships could expect vast profits, the ordinary sailors were often inadequately paid and subject to brutal discipline.

[38] A crew mortality rate of around 20% was expected during a voyage, with sailors dying as a result of disease (specifically malaria and yellow fever), flogging or slave uprisings.

[38][39] A high crew mortality rate on the return voyage was in the captain's interests as it reduced the number of sailors who had to be paid on reaching the home port.

In port towns, recruiters and tavern owners would induce sailors to become very drunk (and indebted) and then offer to relieve their debt if they signed contracts with slave ships.