Slave ship
The ships used in the Atlantic triangular trade , mostly briggs or schooners , whose cargo holds were filled with slaves on their trade route from Africa to the European colonies in the New World , are commonly referred to as slave ships . For the most part, older ships were used in the slave trade , which were converted and equipped in the European ports of the slave-trading nations before starting their voyage in order to meet the requirements of such a voyage. As a result of the high stresses and strains of such a voyage and the risk of total loss through shipwreck, it was seldom worthwhile for the slave traders to use ships specially designed and built for the slave trade. Instead, they mostly took older merchant ships and converted them to suit the needs of slave travel.
Atlantic slave trade
In order to make a high profit from the transports, the owners of the slave ships moved tween decks into the ship's hull in order to be able to transport as many slaves as possible. This led to unsanitary conditions and, as a result, to an increased death rate . Since only the most resilient survived the transport, this also led to strong selection. Often the ships transported several hundred slaves who were chained to narrow mass beds. For example, the slave ship "Henrietta Marie" could carry up to 400 slaves in one passage, who were housed on two decks and spent the week-long passage chained on half a square meter. When the overloaded ships sank, they dragged the slaves down with them and into certain death.
Just a few decades after America was discovered, the Indian population of the Caribbean was so decimated by European diseases that it was a profitable business to let slave ships cross the Atlantic. The heyday of the slave ships on the Atlantic passage was in the 17th and 18th centuries, when large plantations ( sugar cane , cotton, etc.) emerged in South America and in the south of the English colonies of North America .
East African slave trade
The strongholds for the slave trade in the different centuries were Bandar-Abbas , Basra and Cairo . The slaves were transported by dhows . The transport by dhow took place in the Gulf region , Ottoman Empire , Persia and southern India .
middle Ages
As early as the Middle Ages, Khazarian and later Waragian slave ships sailed on the Dnieper .
List of slave ships
- Jesus von Lübeck , English slave ship, built around 1540 in Lübeck
- Adelaide , French slave ship, sunk near Cuba in 1714
- Braunfisch , Kurbrandenburg slave ship, was lost in a slave revolt in 1688
- Henrietta Marie , English slave ship, sank off Key West in 1701
- Leusden , ship of the Dutch West India Company , which sank with 702 casualties
- Fredensborg , a Danish slave ship, sank near Tromøy in Norway in 1768
- Kron-Printzen , Danish slave ship, sank in 1706 with 820 slaves on board
- La Amistad , USA-built ship made famous by a slave revolt in 1839
- Lord Ligonier , British slave ship, in the novel Roots the ship with which Kunta Kinte is brought to America
- Whydah , English slave ship, captured by pirate Sam Bellamy in 1717
- Queen Anne's Revenge , French slave ship called La Concorde, captured by the pirate Blackbeard in 1717
- Zong , British slave ship, in 1781 about 142 slaves were thrown overboard on the crossing to Jamaica
- São José Paquete Africa , Portuguese slave ship, sunk off the coast of Cape Town , South Africa in 1794 , it was en route from Mozambique to Brazil , 200 slaves died
- Clotilda (sometimes incorrectly called Clotilde) - was the last known ship to illegally smuggle slaves from Africa to North America ( Mobile , Al) in 1860 . It was burned to cover up and found in 2018.
See also
- Slave trade
- slavery
- Slave Coast , Gorée ("Slave Island")
swell
- ↑ Das Schifftypenlexikon, Hoffmann and Campe, 1983, p. 234
- ↑ Human trafficking - A brief history of slavery - 476-1375: Beyond the desert - The whole documentary. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Marko Martin: Human trafficking: How Islamic slave trade in India boomed . In: THE WORLD . January 23, 2013 ( welt.de [accessed July 19, 2020]).
- ^ Unidentified Young Man . 1839-1840. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
- ^ Christian Frey: Shipwreck: The death ship of the slaves sank off Cape Town . In: THE WORLD . June 5, 2015 ( welt.de [accessed July 14, 2020]).
- ↑ Exclusive: 'Last American slave ship' discovered in Alabama. May 22, 2019, accessed on July 19, 2020 .
literature
- Jean Boudriot: Le navire négrier au XVIII siècle . Center de Documentation Historique de la Marine, Paris 1987.
- Rodolphe Damon: Joseph Crassous de Médeuil. Marchand, officier de la Marine Royale et négrier . Edition Karthala, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-84586-439-6 .
- Robert Harms: The slave ship. A journey into the world of the slave trade . Goldmann, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-442-15431-9 .
- Heinrich Heine: The slave ship . poem
- James Walvin: The Zong. A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery . Yale University Press, New Haven / London 2011. ISBN 978-0-300-12555-9 .
- Michael Zeuske: The History of the Amistad. Slave trade and people smuggling in the Atlantic in the 19th century . Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. ( ISBN 978-3-15-020267-8 ; 260 pages) [1] .
Web links
- Technical article on the Kurbrandenburg slave trade including a list of slave ships ( PDF ; 6 kB)
- Ship and transport database: Transatlantic , America