American Uprising Read Online Free Page A

Equiano began to scream in the hopes of being rescued. But his kidnappers were rough men and quickly gagged him before tossing him into a sack. He and his sister refused food: “the only comfort we had was in being in one another’s arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears.” That comfort too would be denied him, as the kidnappers sold off his sister the next day.
    After a long journey, Equiano came to the river; he had never before seen water greater than a pond or spring. “My surprise was mingled with no small fear when I was put into one of these canoes, and we began to paddle and move along the river,” he wrote. Within six months of leaving Essaka, Equiano arrived at the seacoast—and saw the looming masts of the slave ship towering over the trees. He was terrified.
    “I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits,” he remembered. With long hair, strange language, and bright complexions, the white men seemed like hellish demons. The other black people about wore dejected looks and grim expressions. They talked anxiously of the fears of being eaten by the white men with their “horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair.” Some slaves choked themselves to death by swallowing their tongues, others cut off their fingers to make themselves damaged goods, while still others just gave up the will to live and died. Equiano was horrified and despaired of ever returning to his native land. He watched as those who resisted the white men were savagely beaten, cut, and chained—even white sailors received this treatment on occasion. His initiation into the world of Atlantic slavery had begun.
    The slave traders brought the slaves from the beach to the slave ships in canoes that tossed and turned in the waves, upsetting the stomachs of African men and women little accustomed to the sea. The traders bound the slaves’ ankles together with iron rods and loaded them two by two into the cramped semidarkness of the slave ship’s hold. But the newly enslaved did not give in easily to these new oppressions. As countless captains’ logs, sailors’ stories, and voyage records suggest, slave ships were notoriously explosive places.
    The captains of the slave ship Diligent left detailed records that provide a window into life aboard a slaver—and the constant warfare between the traders and the slaves. The first moments with a new cargo of slaves were an incredibly tense time for the crew, who knew that slave revolts were most likely to occur in sight of land. The captain posted a rotating set of sentinels to guard the hatchway to the slave quarters twenty-four hours a day. The crew kept arms stocked on deck and kept the swivel guns on the quarterdeck trained at the main deck near the hatchway. Mealtimes, when the slaves were brought on deck, were the moments of highest tension—the entire crew would turn out with guns loaded to help keep order, preventing both revolt and suicide. Tensions ran high.
    The crew saw rebellion in every dark face, fearing constantly lest their ship erupt into violence. Traders knew that children could carry messages and use their sharp eyes to discover loose nails and other potential weapons, that women could use their greater freedom to spy and survey the opportunities for revolt. In fact, studies suggest that slave rebellions were more likely when there were more women on board. The slaves did more than just plot revolt; they also shared valuable information, established networks of communication, and laid the groundwork for the pan-African slave culture of the New World. The informal networks that would sustain these men and women in captivity began to form in the dark holds of the ships. The slaves shared their histories, established bonds of trust and affection, and speculated constantly on what might await them at their destination.
    Slave traders made examples of those who did choose to attempt escape or revolt. When one slave on the Diligent bit a fellow