Middle Passage Essay Research Paper Middle PassageIn

Middle Passage Essay, Research Paper

Middle Passage

In these two essays gA Physician fs View h by Alexander Falconbridge (1788) and gAn African Slave fs view h by Olaudah Equiano (1789), both of the authors talk about the life of slaves in board and their own experiences when they crossed the ocean to another contient. They refer to this as the gMiddle Passage h in the essay. These two essays also show some similarities as well as differences.

Alexander Falconbridge is one of the surgeons on board with the slaves during the Middle Passage. His job is to make sure the slaves are healthy and keep them away from various diseases. Because of his job, he experiences the darker side of slvery. And how the sailors were forced and control the slaves doing some they don ft like. For instance, the sailors commonly gave the food to slaves twice per day, but sometimes slaves refused to eat for some reason. Then the sailors would burn a hot coal, and put it near their lips to scare them. Moreover, a lot of slaves were affected by seasickness because they rearly took ships for such a long trip before, it often resulted in death. And finally, during the voyages, slaves usually putted into the crowed room. They were likely to lack fresh air, and the crowed room also helped the dieases to spread faster.

Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped when he was a child and they were sold him to some merchants as a slave. He followed many masters when he was a slave, and he experienced a lot of different aspects during the middle passage. On the ship, the slaves were forced to stay in a room full of people. The closeness of the room made the temperature went up, and the sickness were among the slaves. Slaves were dying on the ship because of the heat, lack of air and other various diseases. During the voyage, slaves didn ft have too much food to eat. Even if the sailors had food, they were rather throw them away and not gave it to the slaves. Some slaves were trying to escape from the ship and usually they failured to do so and were penalized unmercifully by the sailers once they were captured.

There are differences and similarities in these two author fs essays, they both have different experiences in that period. But they have one thing in common: they is, they both against slavery. The slaves were lived in a very bad condition on the ship during the vogage, the rooms that for slaves were full of people and that the slaves were suffered seasickness, and some various diseases that can be spread in the crowed room like wildfire and lots of people died. Even more, the sailors on the ship were ruded and intimidated to bring more suffer to the slaves, the slaves were forced to eat and when the slaves were truing to escape, the sailors would whip them to death.

These two essays have illustrated the different and similar experiences these two authors. Alexander Falconbridge and Olaudah Equiano have gone through during the middle passage. In my opinion, I think that Olaudah Equiano fs account is more believable because it is his first hand experiences and that fs what makes him active in the antislavery movment.