Cape Coast Castle was originally built by European traders in the 17th century. It became a staging point for the Atlantic slave trade of the British. A video at explore.com describes the conditions in the castle as horrific, although perhaps not as dreadful as what was yet to come for those held there.
While waiting for transportation across the Atlantic, several hundred captives were shackled and locked into the castle’s dungeons.
Through the Door of No Return
When a slave ship arrived, the captives were taken through a big wooden door that became known as “The Door of No Return.”
Once full, the slaving ship set off on the trans-Atlantic crossing. This was called the Middle Passage because it was the central leg in a triangular voyage. The first leg was to load and carry English trade goods to the African coast. The middle leg was to take the slaves to England’s colonies. The third leg was to carry sugar back to England. Each leg of the voyage was profitable, and the trade stimulated shipbuilding, and textile and metal industries.
Onboard Conditions of Slave Ships
The conditions in the slave ships were hideous. Alexander Falconbridge, an 18th century eyewitness to the slave decks wrote that: “It is not in the power of human imagination to picture...a situation more dreadful or disgusting.”
Falconbridge’s “An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa” makes for heart-rending reading: “The deck, that is the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux (dysentery), that it resembled a slaughter- house.”
The slaves were stacked like cordwood below decks. Joseph C. Miller in “The Way of Death” wrote that, “On the Spanish ship La Panchiata, active during the late 1820s, the men on the slave deck sat upright in rows in a space so low that none could stand, legs spread, and knees raised so that each occupied the space between the limbs of the man behind.”
Shackled and packed tightly with very little headroom, layer upon layer of slaves made the Atlantic crossing this way. They had to lie in their own urine, feces, and vomit. If they were lucky occasionally they would be allowed above deck briefly so the cargo space could be swilled down. The stench was so bad, that any ship downwind of a slaver could smell her long before sighting her.
Many Slaves did not Survive Atlantic Crossing
The food given the slaves was often vermin-infested and rotten; but, survivors recalled that thirst was the worst torture. Sailing in tropical waters across the Atlantic, the heat on the slave decks was fierce. The voyage usually took 40 to 60 days, but sometimes, a ship might be becalmed for weeks at a time. And, greedy captains often used space allotted for water storage to pack in extra slaves. There were no such refinements as bathrooms or toilets and a heavy ocean swell would bring on seasickness.
Dysentery was a common problem and the death rate on the Atlantic crossing was between 10 percent and 20 percent. However, the profits to be made were so huge that nobody bothered much about losing part of the cargo along the way.
And, for those that survived this terrible journey, there remained only a lifetime of slavery.
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