Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/100

CHAPTER VI

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

Stowing Slaves for the Voyage from Africa to a Market — The Galleries — Compelled to Lie “Spoon-fashion" to Save Deck Space — A Plan by which the 'Tween Decks Space was Packed Full — Effects of the Ship's Rolling on the Manacled Cargo — Living Slaves Jettisoned to Make a Claim on the Underwriters — Horrors of “The Blood-Stained Gloria" — Blinded Crews of the Rodeur and the Leon — Suicide Among the Tortured Slaves — Pitiful Tale of a Weanling's Death — Punishing Mutiny on the American Slaver Kentucky — Slave Ships Named for Two of Our Presidents.

The term Middle Passage arose from the fact that each slaving voyage was made up of three passages — the passage from the home port to the slave coast, the passage from the slave coast to the market, and the passage from that market back to the home port — say, Newport or Liverpool. It was during the middle of the three passages that the slaves were on board. This passage was invariably made, of course, from the east to the west, and the route lay, for the greater part of its length, in the torrid zone, even when the slaves were destined for the United States.

Most of the ships built for the trade in the eighteenth century had two decks. The space between the keel and the lower deck was called the lower hold, while the space between the two decks was sometimes

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