It’s Time of Year Again

Doing my part to celebrate Black History Month, I’ll be running a serious of short articles on aspects of black history that I find interesting leaving you all the chance to branch out and learn more on your own.

So where to start? I guess at the beginning. I feel many forget that blacks have been a part of American history almost since the landing of the Mayflower. In fact, the first 20 slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. I feel it is often too easy for Americans to use the word slavery without really appreciating the horrors that took place. Sure, we all know when we talk about slavery that it is automatically a thing to despise but I think it does a disservice to all the slaves, many who will forever remained unnamed, by not trying to wrap your head around slavery.

What horrors do I speak of? Start with the slave ships that transported the slaves from Africa to America. This route, commonly referred to as the Middle Passage, ran from Europe full of goods to Africa where the good were sold or traded for slaves. The ships would then make the run to America where the slaves were sold for good bound for Europe with the route then repeating itself. This route took anywhere from one to five months depending on weather. These ships were not luxury vessels, in fact they weren’t even designed for transporting people, rather, goods. As a result, the conditions of the stolen Africans on these ships was nothing short of horrific.

To illustrate, take the Henrietta Marie. It was often crammed with as many as 400 slaves with an average of 80 of them dying before they reached America. During that period, slaves could only expect to live five to ten years under the grueling labor they were forced to do at cotton and sugar plantations.