<p>The Slave Ship </p><p>Many slaves were brought to the Americas to work in sugar cane fields. (Sugar cane was brought to the Americas by Spaniards during Columbus's voyages.) Millions of Africans were captured and packed aboard sailing ships. Three out of ten Africans did not survive the trip on the dirty, overcrowded vessels. Diagrams such as the one shown here instructed ship captains how to load the slaves most efficiently without violating British government regulations. Each slave was put into a berth averaging 5 feet long by 16 inches wide. Without leaving their berths they had to eat, sleep, and attend to bathroom needs throughout the long voyage. </p><p>The horrible conditions aboard slave ships were written about in autobiographies, known as slave narratives, written by slaves who subsequently found their freedom. The following excerpt is from the 1789 slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano. Equiano was a prince from Igbo, now Nigeria, who was captured at the age of 11 by men from another tribe and sold from one trader to another until he reached the coast where he was put aboard a slave ship. </p><p>“At last, when the ship, in which we were, had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck... The stench of the hold, while we were on the coast, was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time... The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, being so crowded that each had scarcely room to run himself, almost suffocated us... 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.. This deplorable situation was aggravated by the galling of the chains... and the filth of necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered it a scene of horror almost inconceivable.”</p><p>The Life of Olaudah Equiano, The Classic Slave Narratives edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. </p>