From freedom to slavery: the slave trade
It is very hard for us to imagine what it was like to be taken by force from Africa to America as a slave. Never again did the slaves see their families or their native land. Instead they were made to work long hours for their 'master'. Many were treated cruelly because they had no rights as slaves. Millions of Africans suffered this treatment under the dreadful system of slavery. You might well find it difficult to understand how such a cruel system could be allowed to flourish.
One reason was that British ship-owners and sailors made large sums of money out of slavery and English ports such as Bristol and Liverpool prospered as a result. This is how the slave trade operated. There were three stages:
First stage
Ships left a British port loaded with goods made in England, such as tools and weapons, that were wanted in Africa. Crews with guns went ashore and captured any young blacks they met. Some local African rulers captured blacks from other areas and sold them to the slave-traders. They were afraid that if they didn't they might be captured and sold themselves. On the west coast of Africa the goods would be exchanged for Africans kidnapped inland.
Second stage
This dreadful part of the ships' journey was known as the 'middle passage'. The ships, now packed with Africans chained to one another below decks, sailed two and a half thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean to America. The journey took from eight to ten weeks. Some of the Africans were so desperate they tried to jump overboard or kill themselves by refusing to eat. Sometimes a crew member would break their teeth and force food into them. Loss of a slave's life was a loss of money for the sailors.
Third stage
The Africans would be sold in the Americas to be slave labourers. The ships' captains would use the money from their sale to buy a third cargo of sugar, spices or tobacco. They sold this for a further large profit in England.
At each stage large profits were made and ships' captains and crews gained considerable fortunes out of the slave trade. Some captains used a system called 'loose packing' to deliver slaves. Under that system, captains took on board fewer slaves than their ships could carry. They hoped to reduce sickness and death among the slaves. Other captains preferred tight packing. They believed that many blacks would die on the voyage anyway and so carried as many slaves as their ships could hold. Captain Collingwood of the Liverpool slave ship The Zong threw 132 slaves overboard. He thought the insurance money would be worth more than sick slaves. He was never tried for murder.
Nigel Smith: Black peoples of the Americas; Oxford University Press, 1992/2000, page 8 f.