How the vietnam war began

Essay by humpfreeHigh School, 12th gradeB+, June 2014

download word file, 5 pages 0.0

Conditions on a slave ship:

Slave ships were definitely not a fun place! Majority of the slaves would prefer death rather than attempting to survive a 2 month voyage in putrid conditions. The slaves were packed into a small, dark space called the slave deck. It was around 4 feet high and built just below the main deck. Their quarters were so hot and humid that the floors of their rooms were covered in mould during most of the voyage. The cramped waiting, tossing in the waves, in suffocating, fetid darkness possibly with hundreds of dead bodies would've been a living nightmare and something that no one should have to go through.

The slaves were brought up on deck only to be fed one small meal of rice but a few days before they reached America, they were given extra food so they would look better and earn more money at the Slave Auctions.

Some of the captives attempted to starve themselves, as often happened, they would be whipped and forced to eat. Over time, water/food supplies would run low and disease would spread through the rotting, unventilated slave deck killing hundreds. By the time the ship reached the halfway mark of the voyage, a third of the slaves had died. Many slaves fought to free themselves. They rebelled on the ships. Most of the time they did not succeed.

Disease was very common among the slaves and was transmitted easily because of the poor hygiene and the way the slaves were packed together. A hundred out of five hundred slaves would die during the night because of unrecorded disease. The flux, smallpox and scurvy were the most spread diseases on the ships. To prevent scurvy, sailors often forced slaves to be more active and participate in what they...