" Slaves were generally kept
below deck with no sunshine or fresh air. They were crowded so
close together that there was never any standing room and often
not even sitting room. Again, they had to be supervised closely
as many tried to starve themselves to death or to jump overboard.
However, the greatest loss of slave property was due to disease,
The ship's captain feared that disease would whittle away his
profits, and, even more, he worried that it would attack him and
his crew. When the passage was completed, and the West Indies
had been safely reached, the slave again had to undergo the same
kind of degrading inspection and sale which had occurred in
Africa, but this time he had to experience the torment in a
strange and distant land.
While the economic profits in the slave trade were great, so
were the human losses. Statistics concerning the slave trade are
often inaccurate or missing. However, it is generally agreed that
at least fifteen million Africans, and perhaps many more, became
slaves in the New World. About nine hundred thousand were
brought in the sixteenth century, three million in the
seventeenth century, seven million in the eighteenth century, and
another four million in the nineteenth century.
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