Olaudah Equiano

I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there 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 any thing. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across, I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before, and although not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet, nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water; and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut, for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.

Olaudah Equiano

Reflection:

The nastiness of the ships and the way that the people were treated was horrific. I can’t believe that he was severely beaten only because he did not want to eat. The imagery in this passage is also very powerful. I can see the beating in my mind. I know the only reason that the white men wanted the African Americans to eat was because they wanted them to be able to do hard labor once they got to America, which is a sad realization because it shows that people then didn’t care about the person only about the work being done. It is also sad because the Africans knew that they were never going to see their homes again and they were homesick. Some even thought that they were going to be eaten.

Diary:

I am scared. This place is the most disgusting place I have ever been in my short years of life. Being on this ship going to who knows where is insane. My family is gone and I don’t know what to do without them, without my friends and all of the people I know and love. The white men are very scary and I can not understand anything that they are saying. They make us eat though we do not want to because it tastes nasty. But I know that if I do not that they will beat me. I try to talk to the other people here on the ship but most of them speak other languages and I can understand them as much as I can the white men. Being pressed up against one another though has made me get close with this other man from my village that I had never really talked to because I didn’t like him. But he is one of the few that I know here and if I don’t talk to him then I will be alone again like I was the first few nights here.