Editing Middle Passage (section)

===Treatment of enslaved people and resistance===
Treatment of the enslaved individuals was horrific due to the captured African men and women being considered less than human; to slavers, they were "cargo", or "goods", and treated as such. Women with children were not as desirable for enslavement for they took up too much space, and toddlers were not wanted because of everyday maintenance.<ref name=Bush>{{cite journal|last=Bush|first=Barbara|s2cid=141289167|title=African Caribbean Slave Mothers And Children: Traumas Of Dislocation And Enslavement Across The Atlantic World|journal=Caribbean Quarterly|date=March–June 2010|volume=56|issue=1–2|pages=69–94|doi=10.1080/00086495.2010.11672362}}</ref> For example, the [[Zong Massacre|''Zong'']], a British [[slave ship]], took too many enslaved on a voyage to the New World in 1781. Overcrowding combined with malnutrition and disease killed several crew members and around 60 enslaved. Bad weather made the ''Zong''{{'s}} voyage slow and lack of drinking water became a concern. The crew decided to drown some slaves at sea, to conserve water and allow the owners to collect insurance for lost cargo. About 130 slaves were killed and a number chose to kill themselves in defiance, by jumping into the water willingly. The ''Zong'' incident became fuel for the [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolitionist]] movement and a major court case, as the insurance company refused to compensate for the loss.

While the enslaved were kept fed and supplied with drink as healthy slaves were more valuable, if resources ran low on the long, unpredictable voyages, the crew received preferential treatment. Punishment of the enslaved and torture was very common, as on the voyage the crew had to turn independent people into obedient enslaved.<ref name="Muhammad 2003">{{cite journal |last1=Muhammad, Esq |first1=Patricia M. |title=The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Forgotten Crime Against Humanity as Defined by International Law |journal=American University International Law Review |date=2003 |volume=19 |issue=4 |page=900 |url=https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1173&context=auilr |access-date=7 March 2021 |publisher=Washington College of Law Journals & Law Reviews}}</ref> Pregnant women on the ships who delivered their babies aboard risked the chance of their children being killed in order for the mothers to be sold.<ref name=Bush/> The worst punishments were for rebelling; in one instance a captain punished a failed rebellion by killing one involved enslaved man immediately, and forcing two other slaves to eat his heart and liver.<ref>Rediker, Marcus. ''The Slave Ship'', 2007, p. 16.</ref>

As a way to counteract disease and suicide attempts, the crew would force the enslaved onto the deck of the ship for exercise, usually resulting in beatings because the enslaved would be unwilling to dance for them or interact.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/slavery/middle_passage/|title=Life on board slave ships |publisher=International Slavery Museum|access-date=November 15, 2017}}</ref> These beatings would often be severe and could result in the enslaved dying or becoming more susceptible to diseases.

====Suicide====
Slaves resisted in many ways. The two most common types of resistance were refusal to eat and suicide. Suicide was a frequent occurrence, often by refusal of food or medicine or jumping overboard, as well as by a variety of other opportunistic means.<ref>Taylor, Eric Robert. ''If We Must Die'', 2006, pp. 37–38.</ref> If an enslaved person jumped overboard, they would often be left to drown or shot from the boat.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/equiano1/summary.html|title=Summary of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. Vol. I|publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|access-date=November 15, 2017}}</ref> Over the centuries, some African peoples, such as the [[Kru people|Kru]], came to be understood as holding substandard value as slaves, because they developed a reputation for being too proud to be enslaved, and for attempting suicide immediately upon losing their freedom.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnston |first1=Harry |last2=Johnston |first2=Harry Hamilton |last3=Stapf |first3=Otto |title=Liberia |url=https://archive.org/details/liberia00unkngoog |year=1906 |page=110 }}</ref>

Both suicide and self-starving were prevented as much as possible by slaver crews; the enslaved were often force-fed or tortured until they ate, though some still managed to starve themselves to death;  the enslaved were kept away from means of suicide, and the sides of the deck were often netted.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ruane |first1=Michael E. |title=Haunting relics from a slave ship headed for African American museum |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/haunting-relics-from-a-slave-ship-headed-for-african-american-museum/2016/07/13/1d794b04-43ad-11e6-88d0-6adee48be8bc_story.html |access-date=5 March 2021 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=13 July 2016}}</ref> The enslaved were still successful, especially at jumping overboard. Often when an uprising failed, the mutineers would jump ''en masse'' into the sea. Slaves generally believed that if they jumped overboard, they would be returned to their family and friends in their village or to their ancestors in the afterlife.<ref name="Bly">{{cite journal |last=Bly |first=Antonio T. |title=Crossing the Lake of Fire: Slave Resistance during the Middle Passage, 1720–1842 |journal=[[Journal of Negro History]] |volume=83 |issue=3 |year=1998 |pages=178–186 |jstor=2649014 |doi=10.2307/2649014 |s2cid=140948545 }}</ref>

Suicide by jumping overboard was such a problem that captains had to address it directly in many cases. They used the sharks that followed the ships as a terror weapon. One captain, who had a rash of suicides on his ship, took a woman and lowered her into the water on a rope, and pulled her out as fast as possible. When she came in view, the sharks had already killed her—and bitten off the lower half of her body.<ref>Rediker, Marcus. ''The Slave Ship'', 2007, p. 40.</ref>

====Identity and communication====
In order to interact with each other on the voyage, the  enslaved created a communication system unbeknownst to Europeans: They would construct choruses on the passages using their voices, bodies, and ships themselves; the hollow design of the ships allowed  the enslaved to use them as percussive instruments and to amplify their songs. This combination of "instruments" was both a way for the enslaved to communicate as well as creating a new identity since slavers attempted to strip them of that. Although most of the enslaved were from various regions around Africa, their situation allowed them to come together and create a new culture and identity aboard the ships with a common language and method of communication:

<blockquote>[C]all and response soundings allowed men and women speaking different languages to communicate about the conditions of their captivity. In fact, on board the ''Hubridas'', what began as murmurs and morphed into song erupted before long into the shouts and cries of coordinated revolt.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Deadly Notes: Atlantic Soundscapes and the Writing of the Middle Passage|last=Skeehan|first=Danielle|year=2013}}</ref></blockquote>

This communication was a direct subversion of European authority and allowed the enslaved to have a form of power and identity otherwise prohibited. Furthermore, such organization and coming together enabled revolts and uprisings to actually be coordinated and successful at times.

====Uprisings====
Aboard ships, the captives were not always willing to follow orders. Sometimes they reacted in violence. Slave ships were designed and operated to try to prevent the slaves from revolting. Resistance among the slaves usually ended in failure and participants in the rebellion were punished severely. About one out of ten ships experienced some sort of rebellion.<ref name="SR-Middle">{{Cite web|url=http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0032|title=Middle Passage|publisher=The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation|access-date=5 December 2017}}</ref>

[[Ottobah Cugoano]], who was enslaved and taken from Africa as a child, later described an uprising aboard the ship on which he was transported to the West Indies:

<blockquote>When we found ourselves at last taken away, death was more preferable than life, and a plan was concerted amongst us, that we might burn and blow up the ship, and to perish all together in the flames.<ref>Taylor, Eric Robert. ''If We Must Die'', 2006, pp. 38–39.</ref></blockquote>

The number of rebels varied widely; often the uprisings would end with the death of a few slaves and crew. Surviving rebels were punished or executed as examples to the other slaves on board.

====African religion====
The enslaved also resisted through certain manifestations of their [[Traditional African religions|religions]] and mythology. They would appeal to their gods for protection and vengeance upon their captors, and would also try to curse and otherwise harm the crew using [[Cult image|idols]] and [[Fetishism|fetishes]]. One crew found fetishes in their water supply, placed by the enslaved who believed they would kill all who drank from it.<ref name="Bly"/>