Answer:
The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage refers to the part of the trade where Africans, densely packed onto ships, were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies. The voyage took three to four months and, during this time, the enslaved people mostly lay chained in rows on the floor of the hold or on shelves that ran around the inside of the ships' hulls.
The shelves were under a metre high and often the enslaved Africans could not sit up. There could be up to more than six hundred enslaved people on each ship. Captives from different nations were mixed together, so it was more difficult for them to talk and plan rebellions. Women and children were held separately.
The following description is from 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano':
At last, when the ship we were in, had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. ...The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome....The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died -- thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.
Explanation:
