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By Root 532 0

from port to port in search of human cargo; the average time most ships remained on the coast was four months. As the slaves were acquired, they were examined: lips pulled back and mouths probed for missing teeth and sores, eyes examined for ophthalmia and blindness, muscles palpated, genitals fingered—all to determine age and health. If the slaves were deemed sound, the bargaining began. Once the negotiations were concluded, the hapless captives were branded with a company’s mark and herded out to the canoes that would take them to the ships that waited at anchor. Many were despondent; others attempted suicide; still others threw themselves overboard and were eaten by the sharks that followed the slave ships, preferring death to an uncertain future. Once on board, they were led belowdecks. Alexander Falconbridge, a ship’s doctor who sailed with the slavers in the eighteenth century, observed these conditions:

The men, on being brought aboard ship, are immediately fastened together, two and two by handcuffs on their wrists and irons rivetted on their legs … At the same time they are frequently stowed so close as to admit of no other position than lying on their sides. Nor will the height between decks, unless directly under the grating, allow them to stand; especially where there are platforms on either side, which is generally the case.

The holds in which they were kept were horrifying. Buckets served as latrines, and those too far away were reduced to relieving themselves on themselves and their neighbors. Falconbridge reported that the decks of the slave holds were covered in blood and mucus and concluded that “it is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting.”

More compelling still is the testimony of Olaudah Equiano, an African who had experienced the Middle Passage firsthand:

The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for fresh air; but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each scarcely had room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.

The Middle Passage had begun.

Many have told tales of the newly enslaved Africans bringing with them in their hair or their clothing okra and sesame seeds, thereby transplanting them to the New World. The truth is that, with the exception of necklaces and amulets, the beads of which have been found in archaeological digs on this side of the Atlantic, most slaves arrived with no belongings and had little idea of their ultimate fate; some thought that they would be eaten! The arrival of African foodstuffs in this hemisphere during the period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade is the result of a more brutal reality. The economics of slavery were such that slavers needed to feed slaves a diet on which they would survive. Much ink flowed during the period of enslavement on how to feed the slaves inexpensively with foods that they would eat. Therefore the almost-four-century-long period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade was one that was marked by a second trade in the foodstuffs necessary for the enslaved Africans to endure their arduous and unspeakable journey. Their survival was of prime importance to the traders who studied West African cultures and dietary habits and used their knowledge in provisioning the ships that plied the trade. They traded with local peoples for fresh fruits and vegetables, but they were mainly interested in finding sufficient food to feed their captives on the lengthy and unpredictable transatlantic journey.

Three basic food crops were taken on, which corresponded to the three basic food crucibles of the western part of the continent: corn, rice, and yams. Indian corn, or maize, had arrived on the continent with the Columbian Exchange and had become one of the primary foods of the African coast from