12.10.2009
This is the final draft of my final essay. It still needs a little editing and some more details to support the thesis, but otherwise it is pretty much done.
Zip-a-Dee Doo-Dah: Travel is not a Cheerful Matter for Slaves
Nowadays, most people think of travel as a leisure activity, something to do in your spare time when you have money. However, this is a fairly new way of thinking of travel. Through the centuries, until about the last hundred years or so, travel has been an exhausting excursion. Sometimes, as in the experiences of the Africans kidnapped for the slave trade, it is forced upon the traveler, making the journey terrible and painful. The slaves of the autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself (henceforth Equiano) and “The Black Man’s Lament, or How to Make Sugar” (henceforth “Lament”) by Amelia Alderson Opie suffered immensely in their travels. For these characters, their travels were not something fun they could do to get away at their disposal, but rather a forced and atrocious emotional battle. These voyages had a tremendous effect on their lives after their forced migration and (rare) eventual freedom.
When first planning a trip, the destination must first be decided on. Families can argue for days trying to decide where they will go. Dad wants to go to Europe, Mom wants to see China, Grandma wants to take a cross-country road trip, and so on. For slaves, the choice was made for them. Some may have been curious and wanted to explore on their own, but they certainly had no desire to be forced into leaving. Most probably had no interest in leaving their homes, but were commanded by slave traders to come to the West Indies, America, or England. In “Lament”, The Negro says that the White man sends his ships to Africa “to tear us from our homes and friends” (Opie line 20). These slaves clearly don’t want to leave, because it described it as “tearing from”, which has a very negative connotation when used to describe taking something. They did not get to make their own decision on the matter, which makes the travel undesired.
After the destination is selected, how they will make it there is the next step on their journey. Modern day traveling involves planes, trains, and automobiles. In the days of Equiano, slaves were transported in ships. While we travel comfortably, recently kidnapped slaves were squeezed into tiny spaces in the hold. A “tightly packed” ship had every square inch of floor covered with horizontally-lying slaves; if the cargo were lucky, they got to travel “loosely packed”: side by side horizontally along the wall of the ship (Clarkson 80-81). Not only was it cramped, but dirty and unsanitary as well. The holding areas were not cleaned until after the ship arrived at port. Weeks of vomit and human excrement accumulated; from the bacteria, diseases were rampant among them. Many abductees would die from these diseases, combined with general fatigue and limited movement from the journey and cramped sleeping quarters. Equiano described the hold as thus:
“I was soon put under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing.” (Equiano 39).
The holding area strengthens the souls of the slaves, if they survive, because after enduring such evil alongside such tragedy, they should be able to cope with anything. Despite having to see beastly acts done to their peers, the characters survived.
On our modern leisurely travels, we often travel with family, or at least a loved one or close friend. We laugh, we cry, we appreciate and criticize the jaunt together. Even if parts, or all, of the trip are unenjoyable, we experience them as one. For the slaves, this was not the case. Even if they were kidnapped in a group, they might be put on different parts of the ship. They might be bought and sold separately. Once they were separated from their families, they would probably never see them again. Mothers lost their children, husbands lost their wives, and siblings lost playmates. In Equiano’s case, he was slightly fortunate. After years of not seeing his sister, he was finally reunited with her. They slept that night together with their master, and all seemed well; the next day, however, she was ripped away from him again, and this time, he never saw her again (Equiano). The slaves of “Lament” had similarly painful experiences.
On many modern trips, there might be sightseeing and enjoying the adventure of seeing a new place. Sometimes, there are unpleasant moments, but the overall journey tends to be fun and relaxing. Over the weeks of the slaves’ sojourn, however, the captives have more to bear than just the stink of rotting flesh, broken-down human waste, and stale body odor. They also have to deal with the brutality of the transporters, who have no feelings whatsoever about the hostages. In Equiano, if a slave refused his food, he was whipped for being insolent (Equiano 39). If he tried to jump overboard, he was to be severely lashed for his daring (Equiano 39). Sometimes, the beatings were so merciless, the slaves would die. The captors were so heartless, “One white man in particular I saw . . . flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that [the slave] died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute” (Equiano 40). Many people would crumble at this torture, and give up. However, Equiano and the slaves of “Lament” persevere.
There are many things that modern families take for granted when they travel. They can choose where they go, how they get there, and how long the trip and stay take. They get to experience their journey with people they love. Despite this, many people do not appreciate that their “rough” trips are by far better than the migrations that slaves such as those in Equiano and “Lament” were forced to take. They had no control over the location, the mode of transportation, or the length of the trip. They were usually forced to do it with people that didn’t even speak their language and were often separated from their families permanently. Despite all this, they took the hardships they had to bear and used them to improve their circumstances, or at least their outlook on life. So the next time you think your family vacation is the worst trip ever, think about the slaves that had to choice but to go on their journeys.
