Page 6 - Debates on the Slave Trade

ocean, the slaves are treated like animals and packed into tiny
spaces with no light and little food or water. Many of these unfor-
tunate individuals die at sea.

Sold Like Animals

When the slaves reach their destinations in the Americas, in-
cluding plantations in the American South, the terrible treatment
continues. For a good many slaves that abuse begins with the
humiliation of being sold at a slave auction. Olaudah Equiano,
the now- famous slave who managed to gain his freedom, ex-
perienced an auction known as a scramble. At the signal of a
drumbeat, he later recalled, “the buyers rush at once into the yard
where the slaves are confined and make choice of that parcel
they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is attended
and the eagerness visible in the [faces] of the buyers serve not a
little to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans.” 32
The horrors of slave auctions have also been described by
Solomon Northup, a black man who was kidnapped in Africa and
sold into slavery. During the ordeal of the auction, slaves are treat-
ed like sheep, horses, or other livestock. Northup later remem-
bered how his captors placed him in a pen with other slaves of
all ages and both genders. The auctioneer “would make us hold
up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would
feel our heads and arms and bodies, turn us about, ask us what
we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth. [At
times] a man or woman was taken back to the small house in the
yard, stripped, and inspected more minutely.” 33

Beatings for the Slightest Infraction
Once a slave settles into life under the new master, he or she is
subjected to a mean- spirited set of rules and laws known as black
codes or slave codes, which severely restrict a slave’s freedom
and mobility. Under these rules, the slave is designated as barba-

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