Equiano the interesting narrative6/1/2023 The cries of pain, terror, and grief filled the air at all times. They rarely had enough to eat or drink, and would grow sick in droves. Slaves could not move about, and barely escaped without their limbs atrophying. There was no privacy, even for women and girls. Excrement and refuse were everywhere, and the air was heavy with noxious, harmful smells. Slaves were chained to the hold and had to perform their bodily functions while chained. It is a profoundly evocative and devastating account of one of the most terrible events in human history: the forcible removal of millions of Africans from their home, and their subsequent transportation across the Atlantic in slave ships, under the most abominable and hellish conditions imaginable. Equiano, 58Įquiano's writing on the Middle Passage is the section of the work most likely to end up in anthologies for history and literature classes. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.
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