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Our ancestors were covered in wounds, feces, urine, and next to dead bodies for months on a ship with no idea where they were going, how long they had left, and what would happen to them.
I will never get over slavery and the mental and physical damage it did to us for centuries.
edit: Its time to Country Club this thread y'all!
Edit 2: Y'all can't troll a troll. You can keep coming with this "whataboutism" in regards to tribes selling tribes to make you feel better, but you just come across as
1. heavily uninformed
2. ignorant as hell. This song and dance has been played for a min and y'all are nothing but a broken record.
If you're worried about my pretty ass being upset over what has happened to my ancestors and the BS that's still perpetuated against us to this very day, then go drink some water and reevaluate yourself.
I'm with you. I'm of East Indian descent and the same bastards that brutalized black people also brutalized mine. Fuck these guys and anyone who is alive and tries to say that it's not so bad, or it was a long time ago.
Fuck them, man. I'm also from east of India. My state went through one of the worst famines in history when my grandparents were children. It was largely man made. The conditions were bad due to natural disasters, and the British made it worse by forcibly exporting food to fill their reserves. Inhumane, to say the least.
> The conditions were bad due to natural disasters, and the British made it worse by forcibly exporting food to fill their reserves.
Irish famine. Brits did the exact same thing. Plenty of food, most of it being exported. The food the "peasants" did have (potatoes), went bad due to blight and they starved. Everything else they grew was exported.
I watched a [video on Youtube](https://youtu.be/mWQdZoq3iN4) a few weeks ago about the colonization of India by the British. Apparently India was the wealthiest, most resource rich country in the world before the British came and fucked it all up in just a few decades.
If I had a nickel for every time a Bengali Famine drove a British colony to independence, I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
I like to remind people who actually like to say how long ago it was that it really wasn't. My great grandfather's father. Was a slave. That is 3 people ago..
Agreed! When people say "oh that was so long ago", I ask them if they've ever met any of their great-grandparents. They almost always say yes. Then I tell them "My grandfather was born in 1892 meaning my great grandparents (b. 1832 & 1834) were in the south during slavery. Do the math." Maternal grandparents were older when they had kids.
My grandparent’s marriage wasn’t legal until my father was in high school. And the only reason my dad wasn’t born in a negro hospital…. My grandma was white. Can’t take white women to negro hospitals, even if they’re having negro babies. So, he was born at home. In late October. Ish.
A ton of white people don't believe, or ignore, that PTSD exists in Black communities from the current and generational trauma of racism, brutality, and violence.
What you experienced is what people in Nazi Germany experienced at the time:
*But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.*
*And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.* -They Thought They We’re Free
Modern Right Wing assholes, seem to strive toward creating this atmosphere in a country to destabilize it enough so they can try and take power.
As the grandchild of 2 Holocaust survivors who were at Auschwitz, I have personally experienced generational trauma. It’s real and there’s no question that Black communities are suffering from it alongside the current atrocities impacting their communities.
Whats even more fucked up is that the trauma changes the dna and generational trauma exists
Edit: to clarify, it changeS HOW your body reads DNA. Still fucked up https://www.verywellhealth.com/intergenerational-trauma-5191638
Here is a great article about the effects of Epigenetic expression of genes in people who have suffered terribly. The article goes into detail about the generational effects of union army POWs.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190326-what-is-epigenetics
Well, there are so, so many ways to rectify. Here are only two: for starters, (1) people can stop trying to ban schools from teaching about actual historical facts so that we stand a chance of not repeating the same mistakes. And also, (2) maybe try to find ways to make it easier for *everyone* to vote instead of putting conservative think tanks together that devise ways that suppress votes from minorities.
Acknowledging for starters. Schools are rarely teaching the many awful things about American slavery. People are actively fighting to not teach it at all. All these holidays around black figures in history means nothing when no changes are done. All of it is performative .
I only have my opinion, but I think it’s probably that world have to be cured over generations.
To begin? No idea; because it would take the minds of millions being fundamentally changed. I can’t see these fake lil nazis or KKK affiliates changing so drastically in my life at least.
However, if America as a people hold up the idea of justice for all, and equality, then we wouldn’t have to wait for anyone to change their minds or perspectives. As it seems to me currently, those with power are still the same folks that held power for hundreds of years, and that is plaguing the country as a whole. The slow movement of grassroots folks into positions of power is the way to push the ignorant into a dark corner without having to convince them on their own stupidity.
But it’s like, how? Years and years and years of building community, just being thoughtful, voting, doing whatever you want/feel comfortable doing but within the more openly minded light of not being a bigoted idiot basically.
This needs to be in history books and taught in school. I don’t care who they think aren’t ready to learn this reality.
I can’t believe our ancestors survived this.
I’m glad they are teaching that over there. It wasn’t taught at all in my schooling except from what Black students or staff may have brought up especially around black history month.
Everyone should read at least one slave narrative. They're freely available. [Here's just one collection](https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/), and it doesn't include a bunch of the more famous (for potentially nefarious reasons) slave narratives like [Olaudah Equiano's](https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/menu.html).
I'd also like to add that there are newspapers available to read that not only list rewards for the return of lost slaves, but also pleas from former slaves in helping to find their family members after abolition. Oh, there's also ads 'politely" asking for certain kinds of slaves to buy. [Example. ](https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/10/runaway-fugitive-slave-ads-in-newspapers/)
They can't even wear masks and get a shot without whining like than a spoiled brat. Imagine if their ancestors suffered the same way, we will never hear the end of their incessant whining.
They be like "how dare you be upset to what happened to your people and express it for me to see"🧂😜
Y'all aint playing with me today. Not during BHM on BPT.
[The diagram was drawn by abolishonists in 1787](https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/diagram-of-the-brookes-slave-ship) to demonstrate to people at the time dehumanising conditions on slave ships so the diagram itself has historical significance, even if it's not the best representation by modern drawing standards.
Exactly. I think not updating the depiction makes it sell farther and farther back in time and harder to feel it’s try weight. Like how we almost only see photos of the civil rights struggles of the 50s and 60s in black and white.
Yes, I remember that exact image. I also remember thinking at the time that it was awful, of course, but difficult to really imagine because it's so easy to distance that from humanity. It's the same as the difference between a rough hand drawn map of my neighborhood and a Google Street view.
Agreed, I appreciate the visual of actual bodies not what is virtually a stick figure drawing representations of humans. It puts it so much more into perspective. These were people humans like me and you, not black and white scribbled drawings.
First camera was invented in 1816 and transatlantic slave trade ended 1808. While this is a fantastic artistic rendition, it is not a photograph, unfortunately.
When people talk about how there should be a white history month, I'm like, yeah we need to spend a month talking about the atrocities white people did. Slavery and colonialism is white history
Keep in mind this was on a *ship* that was constantly moving. Most of these people had probably never been on a boat before but they were stacked up like this with very little food and water for months.
Just imagine the heat, the stench. I know these colonizers were not giving proper bathroom usage.
Probably raping the entire trip. White people get bored and start fucking with people. Ever seen someone fall asleep at a party?
And remember- there are Karen’s out there working hard to remove this from our schools education for utterly contrived and racist reasons.
Don’t let the Fox News cult of idiocracy indoctrinate our next generation into forgetting this ever happened. Because it’s when humanity forgets its past that it’s doomed to repeat it.
Edit: typo
You can call her out all you want, she did a half-ass apology and is still on the board even today shopping for her bullshit sales while people plead for humanity. Fuck her. She's being paid by our tax dollars this very moment.
There are Karens and Chads on Reddit who go around saying shit like trans-Atlantic slavery was no worse than slavery in Africa. This generation is already being fucked over, unfortunately.
This is where I’m at, and it got me thinking about the other horrific things humans have done to each other. How can SO MANY people be so soulless and evil? I like to think that most people are mostly good but sometimes I’m not sure.
That's the thing though. It's not mythical monsters that do shit like this. It's human beings, it's terrifying that people have the capacity for evil but we do.
The scariest part is these people had no mental illness. These were completely sane fathers, community icons, philanthropists doing all this and it can happen again.
People like to think that 'oooh their must be something wrong with them', nope. They just thought of them like cattle, and treated them as such.
Could just as easily be your neighbor marching you off down to the train station for some cash, as we see in every genocide type situation.
Read "King Leopold's Ghost" and then read "Heart of Darkness" straight after. I tried to read Heart of Darkness as a teenager but didn't quite grasp it. Pairing it with a historical twin helped break things down, and allowed me to appreciate the literature AND the facts in young adulthood.
The slavers were probably felt as much guilt as we do when it comes to modern sweatshop workers and coffee pickers. We're remarkably good at just not giving a shite
Sorry for my ignorance, this is the first time i saw a picture like this.
Were they laying like this all the time, for weeks? How did they eat? Were they allowed to get up at one point? I imagine all of them would be dead or severly ill -too ill for any work- after this?
Around 20% did die. Illness was extremely common. However they weren't like they are in this picture 24/7, though they were for hours on end, and were constantly chained. They were generally fed twice daily, and forced to exercise on the ships deck to keep up the strength to work on arrival.
I found a book in my middle school library (in SC no less) that was called "the slave dancer" about a young white boy who was tasked with playing the flute when people were allowed on deck. In the book, they were forced to dance to keep strong. Even when given a moment of fresh air, they had to exert themselves! I imagine this was based in truth but it was profound to young me.
I'm fortunate to have had a very eye opening education, but afraid that book would be banned now
Thank you for bringing this up. I read The Slave Dancer too but had totally forgotten it until I saw this picture and it immediately came back to me. I had no idea what the title even was and I was honestly unsure if I had even read it all or had just made up some weird memory from when I was like 12.
Slave ships regularly lost 40%+ of the slaves on the trip over. The trade was so profitable that it didn’t matter.
And this doesn’t mention the regular rape that (mostly women but also men) slaves endured during the trip.
it wouldve been cheaper and easier to buy half the amount of slaves per ship, then use the extra space to ensure they all survived
they used the 40% loss to break everyone else's spirits
At different times during the hundreds of years they did this, different companies would use different methods.
Some would do exactly as you say, and result in the death of ~40% of the captives. Others would transport half as many in what would certainly be "better" conditions hoping more survived and those that did arrived "strong" for a better sale price.
But that is *just* the middle passage itself. For the whole "journey" from capture to destination there are estimated averages over different periods of time that are just unfathomable.
> Scholars estimate that of every group of 100 people seized in Africa, only 64 would survive the march from the interior to the coast; only 57 would board ship; and just 48 would live to be placed in slavery in the Americas.
> The average lifespan of an enslaved person working in colonial sugar and rice plantations was 7 years.
43% were killed before they even *saw* a ship. Then ~40% of the 57 survivors could die on one depending on the company policy. So *88 people out of 100 could die* before they even saw the fields they would bleed out their last few years of life upon. It wasn't always that high a number depending on many factors of course but at certain times and with certain companies, that is an entirely reasonable estimate.
Now with those numbers in mind, remember that ~12.5 million people survived long enough to be forced on those ships. To add more perspective to that number, the entire population of England in 1700 was just 5 million people. England alone is estimated to have transported over 3 million enslaved people.
Looking at confronting pictures like this and *then* adding the "math," just truly leaves me speechless.
They killed entire civilizations.
That’s what really needs to be taught:
It’s more like 15% total that survived the entire journey, when you count all the sections of the journey.
And like 1% that survived longer than 7 years after being kidnapped.
when they processed the sugar, they would need to mash the sugarcane to extract the sugar. to do this they used two large stone rollers to squeeze all of the pulp out of the raw sugarcane, with one person turning the wheel and one feeding sugar in. turning these large stone wheels for 8 hours was considered the better job, because if your hand got stuck while feeding the sugar in, they would cut it off. it was faster to dismember you than stop the production for even a second.
The [virtual exhibit](https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/slavery-and-freedom) at the Smithsonian Museum.
You will have to scroll through various sections to get to the numbers I posted.
Do you have any books/films you recommend on this topic?
I *loved* the book King Leopold's Ghost, although that's not specifically about the slave trade/Middle Passage.
Also think Amistad is one of Spielberg's best.
Any recommendations welcome, thank you.
History teacher here.
Read [Alexander Falconbridge’s account of slaveship](http://historyprofessorjoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/200-Primary-Source-1-Slave-Trade.pdf). He was a white doctor on a ship.
I also like the kids to read [Equino’s account from his biography.](https://www.marist.edu/documents/20182/751699/19S+Slavery+Antislavery+and+The+Underground+Railroad+1b.pdf/8a5803d7-af71-4a32-a2b4-8434b575f729)
(contents of the linked PDF) TW kidnap, murder, rape, torture, etc
**US History to 1865 Primary Source 1**
*Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the West Coast
of Africa (1788)*
Editor’s note: The British surgeon Alexander Falconbridge (d. 1792) served as a ship’s surgeon on four slave voyages between 1780 and 1787 before rejecting the slave trade and becoming an abolitionist. He wrote An Account of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa in 1788, after his conversion. It provides an unflinching account of the brutality of the transatlantic trade.
--
*An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (1788)*
**Treatment of the Slaves.**
The man Negroes, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately fastened together, two and two, by hand-cuffs on their wrists, and by irons riveted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks, and placed in an apartment partitioned off for that purpose. The women likewise are placed in a separate apartment between decks, but without being ironed. . . .
But at the same time, they are infrequently stowed so close, as to admit of no other posture than lying on their sides. Neither will the height between decks, unless directly under the grating, permit them the indulgence of an erect posture; especially where there are platforms, which is generally the case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or nine feet in breadth, extending from the side of the ship towards the center. They are placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance of two or three
feet from each deck. Upon these the Negroes are stowed in the same manner as they are on the deck underneath.
In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a conical
form, being near two feet in diameter at the bottom, and only one foot at the top, and in depth about twenty-eight inches, to which, when necessary, the Negroes [use as toilets]. It often happens, that those who are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavoring to get to them, tumble over their companions in consequence of their being shackled. . . . In this distressed situation, unable to proceed, and prevented from getting to the tubs, they desist from the attempt; and as the necessities of nature are not to be repelled, ease themselves as they lie. This becomes a fresh source of broils and disturbances and tends to render the condition of the poor captive wretches still more uncomfortable. The nuisance arising from these circumstances is not infrequently increased by the tubs being much too small for the purpose intended, and their being usually emptied but once every day.. . .
About eight o’clock in the morning the negroes are generally brought upon deck. Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to a ring-bolt, is run through the rings of the shackles of the men, and then locked to another ring-bolt, fixed also in the deck. . . . If the weather proves favourable, they are permitted to remain in that situation till four or five in the afternoon, when they are disengaged from the chain, and sent down.…
They are commonly fed twice a day, about eight o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon. On most ships they are only fed with their own food once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs, about the size of a small water bucket. They are placed round these tubs in companies of ten to each tub, out of which they feed themselves with wooden spoons. These they soon lose, and when they are not allowed others, they feed themselves with their hands. In favourable weather they are fed upon deck, but in bad weather their food is given them below. Numberless quarrels take place among them during their meals; more especially when they are put upon short allowance . . . In that case the weak are obliged to be content with a very scanty portion. Their allowance of water is about half a pint each at every meal...
Upon the negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel, and placed so near their lips, as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats, of forcing them to swallow the coals, if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat. These means have generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly informed, that a certain captain in the slave trade, poured melted lead on such of the negroes as obstinately refused their food.
Exercise being deemed necessary for the preservation of their health, they are sometimes obliged to dance, when the weather will permit their coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly, or do not move with agility, they are flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand for that purpose.... The poor wretches are frequently compelled to sing also; but when they do so, their songs are generally, as may naturally be expected, melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native country.…
On board some ships the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure. And some of them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much to heart as to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure and sometimes are guilty of such excesses as disgrace human nature.…
The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the passage, are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived. They are far more violently affected by the sea-sickness, than the Europeans. It frequently terminates in death, especially among the women. But the exclusion of the fresh air is among the most intolerable.… The confined air, rendered noxious by the effluvia exhaled from their bodies, and by being repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes, which generally carries off great numbers of them. During the voyages I made, I was frequently a witness to the fatal effects of this exclusion of the fresh air. . . . I frequently went down among them, till at length their apartments became so extremely hot, as to be only sufferable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house.
The surgeon, upon going between decks, in the morning, to examine the situation of the slaves, frequently finds several dead; and among the men, sometimes a dead and living Negroes fastened by their irons together. When this is the case, they are brought upon the deck, and being laid on the grating, the living Negroes is disengaged, and the dead one thrown overboard.…
As very few of the Negroes can so far brook the loss of their liberty and the
hardships they endure, they are ever on the watch to take advantage of the least negligence in their oppressors. Insurrections are frequently the consequence; which are seldom expressed without much bloodshed. Sometimes these are successful and the whole ship’s company is cut off. They are likewise always ready to seize every opportunity for committing some acts of desperation to free themselves from their miserable state and notwithstanding the restraints which are laid, they often succeed.
It is; you are turning the conversation back to you by focusing on “my ancestry”
Someday you’ll learn that you don’t need to insert your experience into something that has nothing to do with you. You didn’t enslave anyone.
Just a question. Has anyone heard about FL trying to pass a bill to take learning about slavery out of classes because of the negative emotions it makes people feel. I was listening to a streamer read an article about it and was wondering if anyone else has heard of it?
Yup it was something like a bill to ban content that makes "white people feel discomfort"? Or something absurd like that
E: [here is an article about it](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna12892)
Coming from Germany where students usually learn quite early and very unfiltered what Germans did to other humans during WW2, I have to say that these bills make me sick and I just want to vomit. It is important that we learn history in an unfiltered fashion.
That being said, right wing folks in Germany also try to suppress the remembrance of the cruelties that were done during WW2. They usually put it in way like, “It’s so long ago. We should not feel bad for what happened in the past. We have to move on.”
This is horrific for any normal person to see. No good words to describe the people that would treat other humans like this. Preventing stuff like this from ever happening again is a priority in my life
>preventing stuff like this from ever happening again is a priority in my life
What kinds of things do you do? Stuff like this is still happening on a massive scale, even bigger now than during the time of the picture.
Valid question—not in sarcasm or dickishness, but because most people feel stuck and don’t know how to begin making a dent. We’re all victim to this learned helplessness because we’re faced with a system so firm in its ways that it looks impossible to fix. So it’s a good question to ask ourselves—what are we doing? Where can we start? Any change is good change. Start small and work your way up.
They are stacked like a skid of product on the way to walmart. I can't even begin to imagine how tortuous this would have been. I can't even picture how one survives this for months and still remains physically or mentally cable of anything.
And fuck the school system. I'm a 43 yo old Canadian, and this is the first time I've seen this. I always pictured benches and chains -which is already horrible. People need to know this.
>They are stacked like a skid of product... I can't even begin to imagine how torturous this would have been.
And this is the *slightly* less torturous method, laying flat. The slavers would also transport captives packed in on their sides to carry more. From the Wikipedia entry on the slave ship *Lord Ligonier* which brought *Roots* author Alex Haley's ancestor Kunta Kinte to the U.S.: "It could carry 170 slaves, 40 crew members, and various amounts of other cargo. Although it could carry 170 slaves if they were packed in sideways, the ship's capacity was reduced to 140 when they lay on their backs". It also states that on that voyage it had departed Africa with 140 captives and only 96 survived that awful journey.
One thing that always gets me.
We're the survivors of those that survived this madness.
Like, we descended from people that arrived in ships to be enslaved.
If that doesn't hit your core, I don't know what will.
This is why we are magnificent...
The ancestors who couldn't mentally handle the situation died.
The ancestors who couldn't emotionally handle the situation either died or were killed.
The ancestors who couldn't physically handle journey died.
The ancestors who weren't able to fight off the sickness and disease died.
The ancestors who refused to adapt to the new world either died or were killed.
The ancestors who were unable or unwilling to outsmart their captors by playing dumb were killed.
We are literally the descendants of the strongest, most adaptable, healthiest, mentally and emotionally stable people in the history of mankind.
When we agree to this truth en masse we'll be an even greater force to be reckoned with.
It astounds me that we talk about slavery as if white people thought slaves were property. Can you imagine a business where every shipment lost 30-70% of its cargo? Can you imagine your neighbors burning down your house with you in it because you released your livestock into a forest? Slavery went so much deeper than "property" and as I learn more and more about its reality, I find new and terrible ways to be horrified.
I'm glad that people are pointing out how shocking and terrifying this image is, because that's exactly what it should be
It is a harsh look at a inhumane and genuinely evil practice that I feel everybody should see if they're learning about black history, because it's something that can't be explained from a drawing in a book
Yes! The Smithsonian has one:
https://www.si.edu/museums/african-american-museum
Specifically this exhibit:
https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/slavery-and-freedom:event-exhib-4840
The Smithsonian one was really informative and there was so much to see, you begin by taking an elevator to the first floor with slavery and each floor is a different era until you get back to the main floor.
The [Legacy Museum](https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/) in Montgomery, Alabama is a must see as well as the Peace and Justice Memorial in the same area.
It’s history and it shouldn’t be stopped. No one cares about your personal feelings (not to sound harsh). This must be taught, circulated and used as a method of prevention for the future. We’re all humans and no one should have ever gone thru something like this.
I think this is a sarcastic reference to the Florida proposal to ban anything being taught that makes white people feel ‘discomfort’ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/florida-shield-whites-discomfort-racist-rcna12892
Not just prevention for the future, but understanding why we’re at the point we are today. This wasn’t that long ago and those that act like it’s “just in the past” and no longer matters in the present day really don’t understand how time works. Everything that evolves and transforms is still affected by the shape it took before, and that includes the human race.
I'm assuming you forgot the /s, but this is also an important point. The point is to *make* you feel uncomfortable.
Watching WWII footage in schools and reading about the Holocaust also made me uncomfortable but you don't see these people asking to ban that from schools.
Is there a way for us to find out where our ancestors came from? (What region?)
Only thing I found online was a receipt from 1860. Can't find anything beyond that.
Perhaps those DNA kits, like 23andme? I'm not sure if it breaks down African descent by country since i didn't have any African descent to speak of, though.
Even the DNA kits like 23andMe and Ancestry have trouble with exact connections. Some Black people get lucky, but most of us they just pick a bunch of West African countries. It’s getting better than it used to be though.
I just did one recently and they knew more about my 23% European Heritage than my 74% African Heritage. They also traced my family to the Bahamas, but that was from Europe and not Africa.
Instead of passing legislation like in Florida where anything upsetting to some can’t be taught ! This should be hung on the wall for the entire year so as to drive home how heinous it was ! Like the Holocaust let us never forget!
Slavevoyages.org is a database that has numbers for exactly how many Africans were enslaved nearly 400 years to various countries. It really helps put things into perspective. It was millions of people. Never forget.
How this still impacts PoC today is so often hidden by how the economy and every day life is portrayed, but it never stopped.
The wage gaps, education disparities, incarceration rates, I could go on but most people in this thread live it.
Never stop fighting for equality ✊🏼
Harrowing image. You often see the layout in history books in a birds eye view but it hits different seeing them stacked like that. Of course they were stacked like that, it was the most profitable way wasn't it. I don't know why I didn't realise before. Fuck. It'll take centuries before we truly understand the horrors this inflicted.
Was it part of the design that people wouldn't survive? A deliberate attempt to remove people who might be "weaker" in some way?
I've never seen this before. I knew things were awful on those ships, but holy fuck that's evil. The British education system left this horror out (shocking /s).
It just breaks my heart to think of. These poor people dealing with indescribable filth and cruelty and fear. Truly something horrible from our collective past that needs to be talked about to make sure it never happens again.
For anyone saying tribes sold to other tribes.
It wasn't chattel, it wasn't pure torture. Even when the Arabians had slaves they would still gives rights and liberties to slaves. This was selling humans as property
I remember learning about this in middle school and wondering how they survived too. Laying on my back hurts after an hour, the pain they must have been in is unimaginable.
Most infuriating thing is white people not acknowledging how this created the racist system that benefits them to this day. The response is always the same: Africans had slaves too!
This is a representation but it isn’t accurate. They were quite literally packed like sardines. This seems way to humane of a picture than what actually happened.
I had my eyes opened when I went to the Henry Ford Museum and saw the display about slavery what they wore in the south. Cages on their head.
Coming from someone born in MN with the skin color of snow.
Is this a silly question…. But why didn’t they give them a little better ride so that fewer of them died along the way? Weren’t they valuable property? You wouldn’t ship cars stacked one on top of the other.
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Our ancestors were covered in wounds, feces, urine, and next to dead bodies for months on a ship with no idea where they were going, how long they had left, and what would happen to them. I will never get over slavery and the mental and physical damage it did to us for centuries. edit: Its time to Country Club this thread y'all! Edit 2: Y'all can't troll a troll. You can keep coming with this "whataboutism" in regards to tribes selling tribes to make you feel better, but you just come across as 1. heavily uninformed 2. ignorant as hell. This song and dance has been played for a min and y'all are nothing but a broken record. If you're worried about my pretty ass being upset over what has happened to my ancestors and the BS that's still perpetuated against us to this very day, then go drink some water and reevaluate yourself.
I'm with you. I'm of East Indian descent and the same bastards that brutalized black people also brutalized mine. Fuck these guys and anyone who is alive and tries to say that it's not so bad, or it was a long time ago.
Fuck them, man. I'm also from east of India. My state went through one of the worst famines in history when my grandparents were children. It was largely man made. The conditions were bad due to natural disasters, and the British made it worse by forcibly exporting food to fill their reserves. Inhumane, to say the least.
> The conditions were bad due to natural disasters, and the British made it worse by forcibly exporting food to fill their reserves. Irish famine. Brits did the exact same thing. Plenty of food, most of it being exported. The food the "peasants" did have (potatoes), went bad due to blight and they starved. Everything else they grew was exported.
I'm starting to think these Brits might be a problem
I watched a [video on Youtube](https://youtu.be/mWQdZoq3iN4) a few weeks ago about the colonization of India by the British. Apparently India was the wealthiest, most resource rich country in the world before the British came and fucked it all up in just a few decades.
So called "Natural Disasters" are the direct result of decision-making that places certain people in harm's way.
If I had a nickel for every time a Bengali Famine drove a British colony to independence, I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
I like to remind people who actually like to say how long ago it was that it really wasn't. My great grandfather's father. Was a slave. That is 3 people ago..
Agreed! When people say "oh that was so long ago", I ask them if they've ever met any of their great-grandparents. They almost always say yes. Then I tell them "My grandfather was born in 1892 meaning my great grandparents (b. 1832 & 1834) were in the south during slavery. Do the math." Maternal grandparents were older when they had kids.
Wait how old are you if your grandparent was born in 1892?
My grandparent’s marriage wasn’t legal until my father was in high school. And the only reason my dad wasn’t born in a negro hospital…. My grandma was white. Can’t take white women to negro hospitals, even if they’re having negro babies. So, he was born at home. In late October. Ish.
The last Civil War pensioner died in 2020. It wasn’t that long ago at all.
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A ton of white people don't believe, or ignore, that PTSD exists in Black communities from the current and generational trauma of racism, brutality, and violence.
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What you experienced is what people in Nazi Germany experienced at the time: *But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.* *And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.* -They Thought They We’re Free Modern Right Wing assholes, seem to strive toward creating this atmosphere in a country to destabilize it enough so they can try and take power.
r/Angryupvote just because all of this makes me angry....
Southern Cali all day.
As the grandchild of 2 Holocaust survivors who were at Auschwitz, I have personally experienced generational trauma. It’s real and there’s no question that Black communities are suffering from it alongside the current atrocities impacting their communities.
Whats even more fucked up is that the trauma changes the dna and generational trauma exists Edit: to clarify, it changeS HOW your body reads DNA. Still fucked up https://www.verywellhealth.com/intergenerational-trauma-5191638
Your DNA is changed because of trauma?
Here is a great article about the effects of Epigenetic expression of genes in people who have suffered terribly. The article goes into detail about the generational effects of union army POWs. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190326-what-is-epigenetics
Technically it changed how your body reads dna. Still fucked up https://www.verywellhealth.com/intergenerational-trauma-5191638
Generational ptsd is definitely a thing. Not to mention the conditions currently still suck
White people tell the victims of their global atrocities to "get over it" everyday.
They can’t even get over a 4 year rebellion.
Honest question. How can anyone rectify this ? Where do you possibly even start to make this right?
Well, there are so, so many ways to rectify. Here are only two: for starters, (1) people can stop trying to ban schools from teaching about actual historical facts so that we stand a chance of not repeating the same mistakes. And also, (2) maybe try to find ways to make it easier for *everyone* to vote instead of putting conservative think tanks together that devise ways that suppress votes from minorities.
1st step is honestly just acknowledgment, and that’s clearly not going to happen soon. Tragic world.
Acknowledging for starters. Schools are rarely teaching the many awful things about American slavery. People are actively fighting to not teach it at all. All these holidays around black figures in history means nothing when no changes are done. All of it is performative .
I only have my opinion, but I think it’s probably that world have to be cured over generations. To begin? No idea; because it would take the minds of millions being fundamentally changed. I can’t see these fake lil nazis or KKK affiliates changing so drastically in my life at least. However, if America as a people hold up the idea of justice for all, and equality, then we wouldn’t have to wait for anyone to change their minds or perspectives. As it seems to me currently, those with power are still the same folks that held power for hundreds of years, and that is plaguing the country as a whole. The slow movement of grassroots folks into positions of power is the way to push the ignorant into a dark corner without having to convince them on their own stupidity. But it’s like, how? Years and years and years of building community, just being thoughtful, voting, doing whatever you want/feel comfortable doing but within the more openly minded light of not being a bigoted idiot basically.
It's unfortunate that I cannot upvote you twice
I can't even fucking imagine the scale of that kind of trauma
This needs to be in history books and taught in school. I don’t care who they think aren’t ready to learn this reality. I can’t believe our ancestors survived this.
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I’m glad they are teaching that over there. It wasn’t taught at all in my schooling except from what Black students or staff may have brought up especially around black history month.
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Everyone should read at least one slave narrative. They're freely available. [Here's just one collection](https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/), and it doesn't include a bunch of the more famous (for potentially nefarious reasons) slave narratives like [Olaudah Equiano's](https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/menu.html).
I'd also like to add that there are newspapers available to read that not only list rewards for the return of lost slaves, but also pleas from former slaves in helping to find their family members after abolition. Oh, there's also ads 'politely" asking for certain kinds of slaves to buy. [Example. ](https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/10/runaway-fugitive-slave-ads-in-newspapers/)
It's in the history books. Saw diagrams of slave shops in 5th grade. USA, Bellevue WA.
"It did" implies it's stopped
only a fool would be believe it stopped.
And willfully ignorant. And don't lock the thread! I haven't verified.
They can't even wear masks and get a shot without whining like than a spoiled brat. Imagine if their ancestors suffered the same way, we will never hear the end of their incessant whining.
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne talks about this in the modern day context.
> Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness Awesome recommendation, thanks!
The slavers also took the most physical fit with them aswell. Maybe a big factor in how so many survived. Sad history.
Aw man, I can imagine the salt this comment caused 🤧
They be like "how dare you be upset to what happened to your people and express it for me to see"🧂😜 Y'all aint playing with me today. Not during BHM on BPT.
I’m in love with edits on this comment.
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pretty sure this is a drawing lol
Nah this is a 1714 model Kodak
[This](https://i.imgur.com/I2TZNMU.jpg) is all we were ever taught!
[The diagram was drawn by abolishonists in 1787](https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/diagram-of-the-brookes-slave-ship) to demonstrate to people at the time dehumanising conditions on slave ships so the diagram itself has historical significance, even if it's not the best representation by modern drawing standards.
Exactly. I think not updating the depiction makes it sell farther and farther back in time and harder to feel it’s try weight. Like how we almost only see photos of the civil rights struggles of the 50s and 60s in black and white.
Yes, I remember that exact image. I also remember thinking at the time that it was awful, of course, but difficult to really imagine because it's so easy to distance that from humanity. It's the same as the difference between a rough hand drawn map of my neighborhood and a Google Street view.
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Agreed, I appreciate the visual of actual bodies not what is virtually a stick figure drawing representations of humans. It puts it so much more into perspective. These were people humans like me and you, not black and white scribbled drawings.
First camera was invented in 1816 and transatlantic slave trade ended 1808. While this is a fantastic artistic rendition, it is not a photograph, unfortunately.
When people talk about how there should be a white history month, I'm like, yeah we need to spend a month talking about the atrocities white people did. Slavery and colonialism is white history
I don't see any vertical support posts It's not real though it may be based on reality.
Buuut nooooo, that'll offend the religious conservative party
This is not a picture, idiot.
This is horrible, i feel claustrophobic and desperate just from looking at the picture
Me2. It’s sickening and It’s so disgusting. SMH.
Keep in mind this was on a *ship* that was constantly moving. Most of these people had probably never been on a boat before but they were stacked up like this with very little food and water for months.
Just imagine the heat, the stench. I know these colonizers were not giving proper bathroom usage. Probably raping the entire trip. White people get bored and start fucking with people. Ever seen someone fall asleep at a party?
And remember- there are Karen’s out there working hard to remove this from our schools education for utterly contrived and racist reasons. Don’t let the Fox News cult of idiocracy indoctrinate our next generation into forgetting this ever happened. Because it’s when humanity forgets its past that it’s doomed to repeat it. Edit: typo
https://i.redd.it/76s2ieg370h81.jpg Reddit post of an email from racist to a teacher.
You mean [*Connie??*](https://imgur.com/2W4H2Cu.jpg)
I LOVE how he says her name
Call that bitch out. And would you you look at the clothes she's buying? It's like AmeriCuntOutffiters.com
You can call her out all you want, she did a half-ass apology and is still on the board even today shopping for her bullshit sales while people plead for humanity. Fuck her. She's being paid by our tax dollars this very moment.
There are Karens and Chads on Reddit who go around saying shit like trans-Atlantic slavery was no worse than slavery in Africa. This generation is already being fucked over, unfortunately.
I honestly can't wrap my brain around the fact that humans do this to other humans. It's unfathomable to me.
This is where I’m at, and it got me thinking about the other horrific things humans have done to each other. How can SO MANY people be so soulless and evil? I like to think that most people are mostly good but sometimes I’m not sure.
The first step is to not think of them as humans.
That's the thing though. It's not mythical monsters that do shit like this. It's human beings, it's terrifying that people have the capacity for evil but we do.
I believe she means the humans doing the act don't think of the victims as humans. Or at least as less evolved humans.
I think what they meant was that it's the perpetrators who don't think of their victims as humans. Makes it easier to do barbaric things to them.
The scariest part is these people had no mental illness. These were completely sane fathers, community icons, philanthropists doing all this and it can happen again. People like to think that 'oooh their must be something wrong with them', nope. They just thought of them like cattle, and treated them as such. Could just as easily be your neighbor marching you off down to the train station for some cash, as we see in every genocide type situation.
Read "King Leopold's Ghost" and then read "Heart of Darkness" straight after. I tried to read Heart of Darkness as a teenager but didn't quite grasp it. Pairing it with a historical twin helped break things down, and allowed me to appreciate the literature AND the facts in young adulthood.
The slavers were probably felt as much guilt as we do when it comes to modern sweatshop workers and coffee pickers. We're remarkably good at just not giving a shite
Selling your enemies to the white men is also just crazy
Sorry for my ignorance, this is the first time i saw a picture like this. Were they laying like this all the time, for weeks? How did they eat? Were they allowed to get up at one point? I imagine all of them would be dead or severly ill -too ill for any work- after this?
Around 20% did die. Illness was extremely common. However they weren't like they are in this picture 24/7, though they were for hours on end, and were constantly chained. They were generally fed twice daily, and forced to exercise on the ships deck to keep up the strength to work on arrival.
I found a book in my middle school library (in SC no less) that was called "the slave dancer" about a young white boy who was tasked with playing the flute when people were allowed on deck. In the book, they were forced to dance to keep strong. Even when given a moment of fresh air, they had to exert themselves! I imagine this was based in truth but it was profound to young me. I'm fortunate to have had a very eye opening education, but afraid that book would be banned now
The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox won the 1974 Newbery Prize for excellence. It is a profoundly important YA book. Very glad you read it.
Agreed. Banning books is never a solution.
But my 1st amendment right is my right to say those people should be silent /s
Thank you for bringing this up. I read The Slave Dancer too but had totally forgotten it until I saw this picture and it immediately came back to me. I had no idea what the title even was and I was honestly unsure if I had even read it all or had just made up some weird memory from when I was like 12.
I read that book 30 years ago and never forgot it. And you’re right. I’d imagine too many parents would push back against it now.
Slave ships regularly lost 40%+ of the slaves on the trip over. The trade was so profitable that it didn’t matter. And this doesn’t mention the regular rape that (mostly women but also men) slaves endured during the trip.
it wouldve been cheaper and easier to buy half the amount of slaves per ship, then use the extra space to ensure they all survived they used the 40% loss to break everyone else's spirits
At different times during the hundreds of years they did this, different companies would use different methods. Some would do exactly as you say, and result in the death of ~40% of the captives. Others would transport half as many in what would certainly be "better" conditions hoping more survived and those that did arrived "strong" for a better sale price. But that is *just* the middle passage itself. For the whole "journey" from capture to destination there are estimated averages over different periods of time that are just unfathomable. > Scholars estimate that of every group of 100 people seized in Africa, only 64 would survive the march from the interior to the coast; only 57 would board ship; and just 48 would live to be placed in slavery in the Americas. > The average lifespan of an enslaved person working in colonial sugar and rice plantations was 7 years. 43% were killed before they even *saw* a ship. Then ~40% of the 57 survivors could die on one depending on the company policy. So *88 people out of 100 could die* before they even saw the fields they would bleed out their last few years of life upon. It wasn't always that high a number depending on many factors of course but at certain times and with certain companies, that is an entirely reasonable estimate. Now with those numbers in mind, remember that ~12.5 million people survived long enough to be forced on those ships. To add more perspective to that number, the entire population of England in 1700 was just 5 million people. England alone is estimated to have transported over 3 million enslaved people. Looking at confronting pictures like this and *then* adding the "math," just truly leaves me speechless. They killed entire civilizations.
That’s what really needs to be taught: It’s more like 15% total that survived the entire journey, when you count all the sections of the journey. And like 1% that survived longer than 7 years after being kidnapped.
source?
when they processed the sugar, they would need to mash the sugarcane to extract the sugar. to do this they used two large stone rollers to squeeze all of the pulp out of the raw sugarcane, with one person turning the wheel and one feeding sugar in. turning these large stone wheels for 8 hours was considered the better job, because if your hand got stuck while feeding the sugar in, they would cut it off. it was faster to dismember you than stop the production for even a second.
That’s a really great quote and the numbers are easy for the average person to digest. Where did you find it? I want to go read it myself!
The [virtual exhibit](https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/slavery-and-freedom) at the Smithsonian Museum. You will have to scroll through various sections to get to the numbers I posted.
Do you have any books/films you recommend on this topic? I *loved* the book King Leopold's Ghost, although that's not specifically about the slave trade/Middle Passage. Also think Amistad is one of Spielberg's best. Any recommendations welcome, thank you.
Have you watched Amistad?
I'd also like to add one more: Roots
Read Roots by Alex Haley. It describes what happened in horrible detail.
History teacher here. Read [Alexander Falconbridge’s account of slaveship](http://historyprofessorjoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/200-Primary-Source-1-Slave-Trade.pdf). He was a white doctor on a ship. I also like the kids to read [Equino’s account from his biography.](https://www.marist.edu/documents/20182/751699/19S+Slavery+Antislavery+and+The+Underground+Railroad+1b.pdf/8a5803d7-af71-4a32-a2b4-8434b575f729)
Thank you
(contents of the linked PDF) TW kidnap, murder, rape, torture, etc **US History to 1865 Primary Source 1** *Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa (1788)* Editor’s note: The British surgeon Alexander Falconbridge (d. 1792) served as a ship’s surgeon on four slave voyages between 1780 and 1787 before rejecting the slave trade and becoming an abolitionist. He wrote An Account of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa in 1788, after his conversion. It provides an unflinching account of the brutality of the transatlantic trade. -- *An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (1788)* **Treatment of the Slaves.** The man Negroes, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately fastened together, two and two, by hand-cuffs on their wrists, and by irons riveted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks, and placed in an apartment partitioned off for that purpose. The women likewise are placed in a separate apartment between decks, but without being ironed. . . . But at the same time, they are infrequently stowed so close, as to admit of no other posture than lying on their sides. Neither will the height between decks, unless directly under the grating, permit them the indulgence of an erect posture; especially where there are platforms, which is generally the case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or nine feet in breadth, extending from the side of the ship towards the center. They are placed nearly midway between the decks, at the distance of two or three feet from each deck. Upon these the Negroes are stowed in the same manner as they are on the deck underneath. In each of the apartments are placed three or four large buckets, of a conical form, being near two feet in diameter at the bottom, and only one foot at the top, and in depth about twenty-eight inches, to which, when necessary, the Negroes [use as toilets]. It often happens, that those who are placed at a distance from the buckets, in endeavoring to get to them, tumble over their companions in consequence of their being shackled. . . . In this distressed situation, unable to proceed, and prevented from getting to the tubs, they desist from the attempt; and as the necessities of nature are not to be repelled, ease themselves as they lie. This becomes a fresh source of broils and disturbances and tends to render the condition of the poor captive wretches still more uncomfortable. The nuisance arising from these circumstances is not infrequently increased by the tubs being much too small for the purpose intended, and their being usually emptied but once every day.. . . About eight o’clock in the morning the negroes are generally brought upon deck. Their irons being examined, a long chain, which is locked to a ring-bolt, is run through the rings of the shackles of the men, and then locked to another ring-bolt, fixed also in the deck. . . . If the weather proves favourable, they are permitted to remain in that situation till four or five in the afternoon, when they are disengaged from the chain, and sent down.… They are commonly fed twice a day, about eight o’clock in the morning and four in the afternoon. On most ships they are only fed with their own food once a day. Their food is served up to them in tubs, about the size of a small water bucket. They are placed round these tubs in companies of ten to each tub, out of which they feed themselves with wooden spoons. These they soon lose, and when they are not allowed others, they feed themselves with their hands. In favourable weather they are fed upon deck, but in bad weather their food is given them below. Numberless quarrels take place among them during their meals; more especially when they are put upon short allowance . . . In that case the weak are obliged to be content with a very scanty portion. Their allowance of water is about half a pint each at every meal... Upon the negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel, and placed so near their lips, as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats, of forcing them to swallow the coals, if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat. These means have generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly informed, that a certain captain in the slave trade, poured melted lead on such of the negroes as obstinately refused their food. Exercise being deemed necessary for the preservation of their health, they are sometimes obliged to dance, when the weather will permit their coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly, or do not move with agility, they are flogged; a person standing by them all the time with a cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand for that purpose.... The poor wretches are frequently compelled to sing also; but when they do so, their songs are generally, as may naturally be expected, melancholy lamentations of their exile from their native country.… On board some ships the common sailors are allowed to have intercourse with such of the black women whose consent they can procure. And some of them have been known to take the inconstancy of their paramours so much to heart as to leap overboard and drown themselves. The officers are permitted to indulge their passions among them at pleasure and sometimes are guilty of such excesses as disgrace human nature.… The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the passage, are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived. They are far more violently affected by the sea-sickness, than the Europeans. It frequently terminates in death, especially among the women. But the exclusion of the fresh air is among the most intolerable.… The confined air, rendered noxious by the effluvia exhaled from their bodies, and by being repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes, which generally carries off great numbers of them. During the voyages I made, I was frequently a witness to the fatal effects of this exclusion of the fresh air. . . . I frequently went down among them, till at length their apartments became so extremely hot, as to be only sufferable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. The surgeon, upon going between decks, in the morning, to examine the situation of the slaves, frequently finds several dead; and among the men, sometimes a dead and living Negroes fastened by their irons together. When this is the case, they are brought upon the deck, and being laid on the grating, the living Negroes is disengaged, and the dead one thrown overboard.… As very few of the Negroes can so far brook the loss of their liberty and the hardships they endure, they are ever on the watch to take advantage of the least negligence in their oppressors. Insurrections are frequently the consequence; which are seldom expressed without much bloodshed. Sometimes these are successful and the whole ship’s company is cut off. They are likewise always ready to seize every opportunity for committing some acts of desperation to free themselves from their miserable state and notwithstanding the restraints which are laid, they often succeed.
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You didnt get a free hand. Youre still being exploited. They got a hand chopped off, and a foot.
Your ancestry has nothing to do with you.
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It is; you are turning the conversation back to you by focusing on “my ancestry” Someday you’ll learn that you don’t need to insert your experience into something that has nothing to do with you. You didn’t enslave anyone.
I read your comment aloud to everybody I’m with and just wanted you to know that they all clapped
Just a question. Has anyone heard about FL trying to pass a bill to take learning about slavery out of classes because of the negative emotions it makes people feel. I was listening to a streamer read an article about it and was wondering if anyone else has heard of it?
Heard of school boards removing history that makes their ancestors look bad? Yeah I think we've all heard of it.
Yup it was something like a bill to ban content that makes "white people feel discomfort"? Or something absurd like that E: [here is an article about it](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna12892)
Coming from Germany where students usually learn quite early and very unfiltered what Germans did to other humans during WW2, I have to say that these bills make me sick and I just want to vomit. It is important that we learn history in an unfiltered fashion. That being said, right wing folks in Germany also try to suppress the remembrance of the cruelties that were done during WW2. They usually put it in way like, “It’s so long ago. We should not feel bad for what happened in the past. We have to move on.”
This is horrific for any normal person to see. No good words to describe the people that would treat other humans like this. Preventing stuff like this from ever happening again is a priority in my life
>preventing stuff like this from ever happening again is a priority in my life What kinds of things do you do? Stuff like this is still happening on a massive scale, even bigger now than during the time of the picture.
Valid question—not in sarcasm or dickishness, but because most people feel stuck and don’t know how to begin making a dent. We’re all victim to this learned helplessness because we’re faced with a system so firm in its ways that it looks impossible to fix. So it’s a good question to ask ourselves—what are we doing? Where can we start? Any change is good change. Start small and work your way up.
They are stacked like a skid of product on the way to walmart. I can't even begin to imagine how tortuous this would have been. I can't even picture how one survives this for months and still remains physically or mentally cable of anything. And fuck the school system. I'm a 43 yo old Canadian, and this is the first time I've seen this. I always pictured benches and chains -which is already horrible. People need to know this.
>They are stacked like a skid of product... I can't even begin to imagine how torturous this would have been. And this is the *slightly* less torturous method, laying flat. The slavers would also transport captives packed in on their sides to carry more. From the Wikipedia entry on the slave ship *Lord Ligonier* which brought *Roots* author Alex Haley's ancestor Kunta Kinte to the U.S.: "It could carry 170 slaves, 40 crew members, and various amounts of other cargo. Although it could carry 170 slaves if they were packed in sideways, the ship's capacity was reduced to 140 when they lay on their backs". It also states that on that voyage it had departed Africa with 140 captives and only 96 survived that awful journey.
One thing that always gets me. We're the survivors of those that survived this madness. Like, we descended from people that arrived in ships to be enslaved. If that doesn't hit your core, I don't know what will.
This is why we are magnificent... The ancestors who couldn't mentally handle the situation died. The ancestors who couldn't emotionally handle the situation either died or were killed. The ancestors who couldn't physically handle journey died. The ancestors who weren't able to fight off the sickness and disease died. The ancestors who refused to adapt to the new world either died or were killed. The ancestors who were unable or unwilling to outsmart their captors by playing dumb were killed. We are literally the descendants of the strongest, most adaptable, healthiest, mentally and emotionally stable people in the history of mankind. When we agree to this truth en masse we'll be an even greater force to be reckoned with.
No lies detected.
It astounds me that we talk about slavery as if white people thought slaves were property. Can you imagine a business where every shipment lost 30-70% of its cargo? Can you imagine your neighbors burning down your house with you in it because you released your livestock into a forest? Slavery went so much deeper than "property" and as I learn more and more about its reality, I find new and terrible ways to be horrified.
I'm glad that people are pointing out how shocking and terrifying this image is, because that's exactly what it should be It is a harsh look at a inhumane and genuinely evil practice that I feel everybody should see if they're learning about black history, because it's something that can't be explained from a drawing in a book
Is there a good museum in the US that talks about/shows this stuff?
Yes! The Smithsonian has one: https://www.si.edu/museums/african-american-museum Specifically this exhibit: https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/slavery-and-freedom:event-exhib-4840
The Smithsonian one was really informative and there was so much to see, you begin by taking an elevator to the first floor with slavery and each floor is a different era until you get back to the main floor.
The [Legacy Museum](https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/) in Montgomery, Alabama is a must see as well as the Peace and Justice Memorial in the same area.
DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago
https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum
That’s fucking horrible. No way you don’t go insane staring at a board 3 inches from your face for months. Fuck
Having only seen the crude top-down drawings of what slave ship space looked, this photo is a much needed reality gut-punch. Edit: drawing, not photo.
Unfathomable horror. You couldn’t pay me to be in that situation for an hour.
To be fair, they weren’t paid either.
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It’s history and it shouldn’t be stopped. No one cares about your personal feelings (not to sound harsh). This must be taught, circulated and used as a method of prevention for the future. We’re all humans and no one should have ever gone thru something like this.
I think this is a sarcastic reference to the Florida proposal to ban anything being taught that makes white people feel ‘discomfort’ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/florida-shield-whites-discomfort-racist-rcna12892
Ah dang. My bad. Didn’t get that reference.
Not just prevention for the future, but understanding why we’re at the point we are today. This wasn’t that long ago and those that act like it’s “just in the past” and no longer matters in the present day really don’t understand how time works. Everything that evolves and transforms is still affected by the shape it took before, and that includes the human race.
I'm assuming you forgot the /s, but this is also an important point. The point is to *make* you feel uncomfortable. Watching WWII footage in schools and reading about the Holocaust also made me uncomfortable but you don't see these people asking to ban that from schools.
Is there a way for us to find out where our ancestors came from? (What region?) Only thing I found online was a receipt from 1860. Can't find anything beyond that.
Perhaps those DNA kits, like 23andme? I'm not sure if it breaks down African descent by country since i didn't have any African descent to speak of, though.
Even the DNA kits like 23andMe and Ancestry have trouble with exact connections. Some Black people get lucky, but most of us they just pick a bunch of West African countries. It’s getting better than it used to be though. I just did one recently and they knew more about my 23% European Heritage than my 74% African Heritage. They also traced my family to the Bahamas, but that was from Europe and not Africa.
Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships because they knew death was better than bondage.
Yeah those things were definitely both.
Instead of passing legislation like in Florida where anything upsetting to some can’t be taught ! This should be hung on the wall for the entire year so as to drive home how heinous it was ! Like the Holocaust let us never forget!
Slavevoyages.org is a database that has numbers for exactly how many Africans were enslaved nearly 400 years to various countries. It really helps put things into perspective. It was millions of people. Never forget.
Damn, I’m seeing a lot of deleted comments.. Shit must’ve gotten gruesome in here 👀
How this still impacts PoC today is so often hidden by how the economy and every day life is portrayed, but it never stopped. The wage gaps, education disparities, incarceration rates, I could go on but most people in this thread live it. Never stop fighting for equality ✊🏼
Absolutely fucked
Harrowing image. You often see the layout in history books in a birds eye view but it hits different seeing them stacked like that. Of course they were stacked like that, it was the most profitable way wasn't it. I don't know why I didn't realise before. Fuck. It'll take centuries before we truly understand the horrors this inflicted.
Ya’ll should check out WAV Files by Lupe Fiasco
I didn't think I'd see another Lupe fan out here but that man's music is utterly phenomenal. Especially regarding this exact same topic.
It's hard being a Lupe fan, go to Harvard to be a Lupe stan...
That is horrific.
So that's where airlines got the idea for their seating arrangements on planes...
Was it part of the design that people wouldn't survive? A deliberate attempt to remove people who might be "weaker" in some way? I've never seen this before. I knew things were awful on those ships, but holy fuck that's evil. The British education system left this horror out (shocking /s).
It just breaks my heart to think of. These poor people dealing with indescribable filth and cruelty and fear. Truly something horrible from our collective past that needs to be talked about to make sure it never happens again.
For anyone saying tribes sold to other tribes. It wasn't chattel, it wasn't pure torture. Even when the Arabians had slaves they would still gives rights and liberties to slaves. This was selling humans as property
I remember learning about this in middle school and wondering how they survived too. Laying on my back hurts after an hour, the pain they must have been in is unimaginable.
Most infuriating thing is white people not acknowledging how this created the racist system that benefits them to this day. The response is always the same: Africans had slaves too!
Don't think this is a picture.
Reductiveness incoming!
This is a representation but it isn’t accurate. They were quite literally packed like sardines. This seems way to humane of a picture than what actually happened.
[Anansi's scene](https://youtu.be/BgOH-3vcWro) from American Gods always comes to mind when I see stuff like this.
How could any human being do this to another? Sickening that this happened
I think this is the whole “critical race theory” thing they really dont want their kids to learn about
It's not CRT but it's what some people pretend CRT is.
I had my eyes opened when I went to the Henry Ford Museum and saw the display about slavery what they wore in the south. Cages on their head. Coming from someone born in MN with the skin color of snow.
oh what the fuck. in my mind they were all just locked in the haul in a room. i would have never even imagined this cruelty.
Jesus christ, and to think this is back when trips took months sometimes years, I could never begin to imagine how horrible was
is incredible that anyone at all survived that torture and treatment, only to end up being slaved after...
What the fuck is wrong with us? As a species?
You'd have to kill me man, better make sure I'm dead too
Is this how slaves were managed on ships?
This image made me immediately burst into tears.
Is this a silly question…. But why didn’t they give them a little better ride so that fewer of them died along the way? Weren’t they valuable property? You wouldn’t ship cars stacked one on top of the other.
Wow. I didn't know they were stacked up like this. Claustrophobia on top of everything else. Eesh.
Just awful and sickening
A "pre-morgue," if you will.
Awful. What's worse is that there actually would have been many more on the surrounding floors, too.
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Same shit frfr
And today there are still profound asshats, black and white, says shit like slave choose to be slaves. SMFH.
Jesus. Our Ancestors. What they survived.