How cruelly were slaves treated?

1. How cruelly were slaves treated?

2. Objectives In this activity you will: • Explore the conditions in which slaves were kept on slave ships. • Learn how slaves were treated on sugar plantations.

3. How cruelly were slaves treated? British and European slave traders obtained slaves in different ways: • They either launched raids on the West Coast of Africa and captured slaves. • Or African and Arab slave traders brought slaves to markets on the coast of West Africa and sold slaves to European slave traders. - The Europeans would often exchange goods with the slave traders in return for slaves. - The slaves would then be transported by ship to the Americas. - During the period 1700-1807, approximately 12 million African slaves were taken by ship across the Atlantic Ocean.

4. How cruelly were slaves treated? Working in pairs, read slides 6-9 and take notes. You may want to use the following headings: • Conditions on the boat • Illness • Punishment

5. How cruelly were slaves treated? Imagine one of you is a newspaper reporter and the other is an artist. Together you want to expose the cruelty of slavery to people in Britain: • Reporter: write an article revealing the horrors of slavery. Focus on the transportation of slaves and life on the sugar plantations. • Artist: design and draw a poster that reveals the horrors of slavery. • The article and poster should support each other. You will need to work together to make sure your arguments and images are convincing.

6. Conditions on the transport ships were very harsh. Ships designed to carry 450 people often carried over 600 slaves, in order to generate more profits. If slaves became infected with diseases, they would often be thrown over board. In 1781 on the Slave Ship Zong, 133 sick slaves were thrown overboard.

7. Slave ships • The lavatory on a slave ship was often just a bucket (many slaves never even had access to the bucket) • The smell on the ships was unbearable. • Diseases such as dysentery were common. • Slaves were chained together. • Many slaves committed suicide. • The death rate on a slave ship could be as high as 50%. • Female slaves were often abused by the sailors.

8. Sugar plantations • Slaves were punished physically; sometimes half a foot would be amputated to prevent a slave from running. • Some slaves were forced to wear heavy neck rings. • One incident resulted in a sick slave being boiled in a tub of boiling sugar. • Slaves had to work long hours under difficult conditions and their diets were often very poor. • The average life expectancy of a slave was 26. • 25% of slave babies died before they were 10 days old. • Diseases such as smallpox, measles and whooping cough were often fatal.

9. Present your newspaper articles and posters to the rest of the class.