what does this drawing show about enslaved africans aboard this ship?

Middle Passage, the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Sea to the New Earth. It was one leg of the triangular trade road that took goods (such as knives, guns, ammunition, cotton wool cloth, tools, and brass dishes) from Europe to Africa, Africans to work every bit slaves in the Americas and West Indies, and items, by and large raw materials, produced on the plantations (carbohydrate, rice, tobacco, indigo, rum, and cotton wool) back to Europe. From almost 1518 to the mid-19th century, millions of African men, women, and children fabricated the 21-to-90-day voyage aboard grossly overcrowded sailing ships manned by crews more often than not from Swell Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and France.

Slaver captains anchored importantly off the Guinea Coast (too called the Slave Coast) for a month to a year to trade for their cargoes of 150 to 600 persons, most of whom had been kidnapped and forced to march to the coast under wretched conditions. While at anchor and after the departure from Africa, those aboard ship were exposed to almost continuous dangers, including raids at port by hostile tribes, epidemics, attack by pirates or enemy ships, and bad weather. Although these events affected the ships' crews as well as the enslaved, they were more devastating to the latter group, who had also to cope with concrete, sexual, and psychological abuse at the hands of their captors. Despite—or perhaps in part because of—the conditions aboard send, some Africans who survived the initial horrors of captivity revolted; male person slaves were kept constantly shackled to each other or to the deck to prevent wildcat, of which 55 detailed accounts were recorded betwixt 1699 and 1845.

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…the trip, known as "the Middle Passage," usually to Brazil or an isle in the Caribbean, was a thing of a few weeks...

Then that the largest possible cargo might be carried, the captives were wedged belowdecks, chained to depression-lying platforms stacked in tiers, with an average private space allotment that was 6 anxiety long, xvi inches wide, and perhaps iii feet high (183 by 41 by 91 cm). Unable to stand cock or plow over, many slaves died in this position. If bad weather or equatorial calms prolonged the journey, the twice-daily ration of water plus either boiled rice, millet, cornmeal, or stewed yams was greatly reduced, resulting in well-nigh starvation and attendant illnesses.

In the daytime, atmospheric condition permitting, slaves were brought on deck for exercise or for "dancing" (forced jumping upward and down). At this time, some captains insisted that the sleeping quarters be scraped and swabbed by the crew. In bad weather the oppressive heat and noxious fumes in the unventilated and unsanitary holds caused fevers and dysentery, with a high mortality rate. Deaths during the Middle Passage, caused past epidemics, suicide, "fixed melancholy," or mutiny, have been estimated at xiii percent. And so many bodies of expressionless or dying Africans were jettisoned into the ocean that sharks regularly followed the slave ships on their westward journey.

The Middle Passage supplied the New World with its major workforce and brought enormous profits to international slave traders. At the same time, it exacted a terrible toll in concrete and emotional ache on the part of the uprooted Africans; it was distinguished by the callousness to homo suffering it developed among the traders.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.