In this first picture, we can see the ship in which enslaved were transported in the eighteen century. In the eighteen century, this picture was used to represent the concern for the treatment of many enslaved which led Parliament to pass an 1788 act restricting the number of enslaved a ship could carry at one time. This stowage plan of the Brooks, showing the arrangement of enslaved in the hold of the ship. It was published by the London Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade as proof of the inhumane conditions that still existed even under the new regulations. This image became a powerful propaganda tool in both the British and American abolition movements.

In this second picture, we can see the inside of the ship. We can see how tight those enslaved were because there were not sufficient spaces between them. It was overcrowded inside. By the expression of some of them, it is well to assume that there is sadness among them since some of them are being separated from their family. Some of them could be children but the greed of those enslavers in those times did not let them see furthermore. It is also a sign of sadness because some of them will never see their families again and they have to work for others in order to survive and hoping to get their freedom someday.

I selected these two pictures because both of them remind me of Olaudah Equiano. In The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings by Olaudah Equiano, the theme of slavery is very highlighted. In chapter two of the same book, he explains how many times he was selling. He passes many circumstances onboard of many ships and the grief of being separate from his family and his beloved sister. After many times of being sold, he came to the sea. When he arrived, he saw a slave ship waiting for his cargo (55). Equiano expresses “These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror, which I am yet at loss to describe, nor the then feelings of my mind” (55). When he saw many black people chained together with expressions of profound sorrow on their faces, he realized what awaited him, and knew that he would never return to his native country (56). Equiano did not want to be there, and he suddenly wished to return to former slavery than to endure this new punishment. Equiano continues describing the sensation of being put under the decks and expresses, “…I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything” (56). Equiano started feeling a little better when he found people of his own nation because he was convinced that the white men were evil spirits. Down in the hold, he was assaulted by hot air unfit to breathe because of its repugnant smells. Onboard, Equiano witnesses how many people grew sick and died, “thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.” He listened to the screams and cries of anguish and terror on many enslaved what made the hold like a scene from Hell. However, since Equiano was a young boy, he was not put into chains and had more freedom to move about.

These two pictures are remarkable to demonstrate the way that enslaved were treated in the transatlantic slave trade. In chapter two from the book The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings by Olaudah Equiano the reader can appreciate and feel at the same time, the suffering that those poor people suffer because of the avarice of others. As I said before, those enslaved were treated without consideration, sometimes they did not eat, they were punished because of their ignorance but their enslavers did not teach them how to behave. It is sadder because they dreamed to be free and they did know when that would happen. Every time each of them was sold, there was a challenging experience as Equiano once said, “I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over… there were several brothers… were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion to see and hear their cries at parting” (61). There were cries because they knew what they are going to suffer and they. Also, they were full of pain because they did not know if some day, they could see their loved ones.

Works cited

Equiano, Olaudah, and Vincent Carretta. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. Penguin Books, 2003.

Getty Images “ Eighteenth-Century Collection Online” 1789

Slave Ship: Albanoz, 1846. Slavery & Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive.