| Abstrakt: |
The voyage out of Africa was superseded by many thousands of years of human existence. Victims of the transatlantic slave trade lived their lives as proudly as we live our lives today. For the 350 individuals forcibly brought to the Sao Joáo Bautista ship from the Angolan shores, the ordeal began in late May 1619, well after the first transatlantic shipments of human bodies started around at the end of the fifteenth century. Often, their lives are summed up in one word, "slaves," but they were human beings, each with the richness of life and dignity as given to them by their creator. To go beyond the sterility of numbers and statistics of the Middle Passage, this article quotes heavily from their firsthand narratives. We hear from enslaved individuals, in written words, as they describe their journey to the Americas immediately before they left their homes, while on the slave ships, and immediately upon their arrival in the "New World." This article is divided into three sections. The first is the background in which the Middle Passage is defined and quantified. In the second section, excerpts from freedom or slave narratives and descriptions from individuals on the ship are presented. In the third and final section, the article is concluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
