Homework 1

Two narratives about the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas were both recorded in the story The Life of Olanudan Equiano and Of Plymouth Plantation. Both of these accounts were similar in the fact that the narrators both talked about how harsh the conditions on deck of the ships were. In The Life of Olanudan Equiano on page 171 Equiano describes as, "...so crowded that each had scarcely any room to turn over". This shows how the journey was terrible and at times unbearable for the slaves aboard the ship. Also in Of Plymouth Plantation William Bradford says "...there were encountered many times with crosswinds, and met with many fierce storms". It is easy to see that both of these stories show that there were hardships that they had to overcome to reach the Americas. 
During the voyage from Africa to America, the African slaves were treated as if they were animals. The Europeans did not consider these human beings as people, and they never treated any of the African with respect or modesty. On page 173 Equiano shows how the Europeans were treating the Africans like animals " ...to our astonishment that were on deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expecting they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again." When the Europeans had extra food, they would throw it overboard in front of the starving Africans, taunting them with food.
All though this slaves often times chose to die rather then to keep living the way they were forced to on the ships. As stated above the Europeans treated them as if they were animals, enclosing them in close quarters under the deck and not feeding them. All of the hardships that they had to endure was just too much for some of the slaves on the ships, and to stop the suffering they decided to take their own lives, to escape from the misery on the ships. "The shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole scene of horror almost inconceivable", this is how Equiano describes the conditions under deck, some people didn't have the will to keep living this way, so they killed themselves by jumping overboard.     

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