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Dbq Middle Passage Analysis

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The “Triangular Trade” was the trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. They traded crops, goods, and slaves. The transportation of slaves from Africa to the New World is what has been labeled as the “Middle Passage.” Many accounts have been documented about this transportation, in the eyes of historians, crew members of the actual ships, and even slaves who went through this voyage themselves. All of them have a different way of describing how the Middle Passage was truly experienced. However, when looking at them in a general sense, a very clear conclusion can be made: slaves were kept in a horrific environment, which often affected the crew on board, but the only reason the slaves were kept alive was because the white crews saw them as monetary beings rather than human beings. The conditions of the ships were so …show more content…

From Alexander Falconbridge, a doctor who served on the British slave ships, “They are frequently stowed so close, they can only lie on their sides… The exclusion of the fresh air is among the least tolerable,,, the floor of their rooms was so covered with blood and mucus because of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house” (Doc C). This document describes the heinous conditions that these slaves stayed in. Considering that this is coming from a doctor of the ships, you could look at this as a reliable source. A doctor has no reason to lie about the state of a ship, and even in the same document there’s a comment on how doctors wouldn’t work there if they didn’t need the money. So there may be a chance for bias, but it is highly unlikely. You can find many documents talking about it, but there’s one document that shares a different perspective. According to Thomas Phillips, a captain of one these slaves ships, “There happened such sickening and mortality among my poor men and Negroes. Of the first we buried 14, and of the last 320… The

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