Middle Passage free essay sample

The idea of brutal practices of human bondage is hard to entirely understand. The emotions involved in keeping a human captive are beyond understanding. Its dehumidifying, sickening, and painful to understand how Africans were enslaved from their homelands. Packed side by side, shoulder to shoulder under planks, and no room to breathe or move, lay the African slaves. The inhumane treatment of the slaves consisted of brutal beatings, starvation and sexual assault on the women.In addition, they were sold and ere robbed Of their independence dignity during the long hard voyage Of the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage was a harsh slave trade of millions of Africans that was literally stolen away from their native lands, leaving behind their families, work, heritage, and everything that was familiar to them. Africans were robbed of their independence, humanness and were reduced to cargo, commodities among continents, including the trading of black men, women, and children who were treated like property. The Africans were chained down as well.Johnson described them trying to commit suicide because they had no idea what the Americans had in store for hem. The slaves would jump overboard because they thought their life was horrible. They were starved, lived in filthy living conditions and they knew they might never see freedom again. If you have never been hungry, you cannot know the either/or agony created by a single sorghum biscuit-either your brother gets it or you do. And if you do eat it, you know in your bones you have stolen the food straight from his mouth, there being so little for either of you (Johnson 47). This comes to show how the slaves felt day after day. Never feeling satisfied could drive a person insane. Today, humans say l am starving but really they have no idea how it feels. Johnson shows the moral dilemma these Africans went through. Just like present day, some things never change. One word comes to mind, rumors. The men of the Republic heard things about a group named the Lemurs. They were the highest rank of slaves. The reason for this was because they did not need much. They were vegetarians and material things were not important. The shipmates thought they were some kind of witches. Theyre a whole tribe- men, women, and tykes-of devil worshiping spell- assisting wizards (43). The Lemurs were cultured people, they did no such thing as witchcraft. The shipmates had no explanation of this tribe. The men did not understand the unity this tribe shared with each other: absences of identity. They were a group of many people but they saw each other as one. The Lemurs also thought the men on the ship were taking them to be eaten. They saw the shipmates as savages and that this was their purgatory. When people are uneducated, false accusations start making its way around to others.Charles Johnson not only shows negative aspects of slavery, he also lets the reader watch a young troubled man turn into a responsible grown man. Rutherford Calhoun was an ex-slave, a thief, who lied when ever he could, and had no home. When Calhoun was a boy, his father abandoned him and his brother. He judges his father for leaving them. While Calhoun steals, it makes him feel powerful. This act of defiance makes the people he steals from feel violated, just like his father made him feel. While Calhoun was on ship he became very attached to a little girl named Bleak.Whenever Bleak is out of my sight I am worried. If she bruises herself, feel bruised. Night and day pray all will go well for her, even after I am gone (195). When her mother died, he took full responsibility for this small girl. Not only being at sea but taking care of another life resulted Calhoun to transform into a man. Just like a parent, he wanted the best for this girl and he wanted to be the one to give her the world. Charles Johnson felt all the torture and agony the slaves went through during the mid 1 sass and beyond that time.He wrote this way because he anted the audience to feel and think about these unbearable people. Johnson came as close as any author could to making the experience real for the reader. The images in the readers mind became real, intense and unforgettable. The rumors were passed on through Johnnys whole book which showed the ignorant aspect of the journey. Rutherford Calhoun transformation showed strength that a colored man should have had during the era of slavery. Charles Johnson went through great lengths to describe the imagery, the rumors, and the transformation during a trip back to America.