Below are three primary source excerpts that each provide a first-hand description of enslavement. Each excerpt documents one specific step in the experience of enslavement.

The Capture

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano was born around 1757 in the Fante village of Agimaque, now in Ghana. He was captured in 1770 sold into slavery on the West Indian plantations of Grenada. During his enslavement in England, he wrote letters published in London newspapers and authored the book excerpted here. In this excerpt, Cugoano described how African raiding parties captured and sold fellow Africans to European traders.

“…I must own, to the shame of my countrymen, that I was first kidnapped and betrayed by some of my own complexion… but if there were no buyers there would be no sellers. So far as I can remember, some of the Africans in my country keep slaves, which they take in war, or for debt; but those which they keep are well fed, and good care taken of them, and treated well… But I may safely say, that all the poverty and misery that any of the inhabitants of Africa meet with among themselves, is far inferior to those inhospitable regions of misery which they meet with in the West Indies, where their hard hearted overseers have neither regard to the laws of God, nor the life of their fellow men… Some pretend that the Africans, in general, are a set of poor, ignorant, dispersed, unsociable people; and that they think it no crime to sell one another, and even their own wives and children; therefore they bring them away to a situation where many of them may arrive to a better state than ever they could obtain in their own native country. This specious pretence is without any shadow of justice or truth and if the argument was even true, it could afford no just and warrantable matter for any society of men to hold slaves. But the argument is false; there can be no ignorance, dispersion, or unsociableness found among them, which can be made better by bringing them away to a state of a degree equal to that of a cow or a horse…”

Cugoano, Ottobah, Thoughts and sentiments on the evil and wicked traffic of the slavery: and commerce of the human species, humbly submitted to the inhabitants of Great-Britain, by Ottobah Cugoano. [London: 1787] Eighteenth Century Collections Online, University of Michigan Library, 2005.

The Middle Passage

Olaudah Equiano was born around 1745 in the village of Essaka in the interior of today’s eastern Nigeria. He was kidnapped at the age of ten and taken to Barbados. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written by Himself was published in 1789. In this excerpt, he described boarding a ship from Africa and the experience of making the “middle passage” to America.

 The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave-ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror, which I am yet at a loss to describe, nor the then feelings of my mind. When I was carried on board I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some of the crew…At last, when the ship we were in had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. 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 the 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 had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable…

Equiano, Olaudah, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African. [London: 1789] Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Brycchan Carey, 2024.

 Auction and Sale

Mary Prince was born in Bermuda in about 1788. She experienced the horrors of slavery in Bermuda, then in Antigua and the Turks and Caicos Islands. First published in 1831, her autobiography The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, provided a first-hand account of her experiences as an enslaved African woman. it was reproduced in three different editions and is the only known autobiography of an enslaved woman in the British West Indies. In this excerpt, she described the horrors of the slave market.

 We followed my mother to the market-place. At length, the vendue master [auctioneer], who was to offer us for sales like sheep or cattle, arrived and asked my mother which was the eldest. She said nothing but pointed to me. He took me by the hand, and led me out into the middle of the street, and, turning me slowly round, exposed me to the view of those who attended the venue. I was soon surrounded by strange men, who examined and handled me in the same manner that a butcher would a calf or a lamb he was about to purchase. The bidding started at a few pounds, and gradually rose to 57. The people who stood by said that I had fetched a great sum for so young a slave. I then saw my sisters led forth and sold to different owners. When the sale was over, my mother hugged and kissed us, and mourned over us, begging us to keep a good heart. It was a sad parting; one went one way, one another …The next morning my mistress set about instructing me in my tasks. She taught me to do all sorts of household work. And she taught me (how can I ever forget it!) the exact difference between the rope and the whip when applied to my naked body by her own cruel hand. And there was scarcely any punishment more dreadful than the blows received on my face and head from her hard heavy fists. She was a fearful woman and a savage mistress to her slaves.

 Prince, Mary, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. Related by Herself. With a Supplement by the Editor. To Which Is Added, the Narrative of Asa-Asa, a Captured African. [London, 1831] Electronic Version. Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina, 2000.