What was the middle passage and what was it was about?

Answer 1

The middle passage is part of the triangle trade. it was the middle leg of the Triangular Trade route used by the European merchants. The African slaves were viewed as cargo by the merchants and were packed into the ships with no regard to their basic human rights.
Slave ships could be either 'tight pack' or 'loose pack'. A 'tight pack' could hold many more slaves than the 'loose pack' because the amount of space allocated to each slave was considerably less, but more slaves would die on route to America so there would be less slaves to sell .
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It is when the slaves were taken by Europe and america from the African traders. Crossing the Atlantic on large boats, they were chained to the floor and had very little room to move. There would often be hundreds kept just on the deck of the ship. Slaves on the ships had as little as a 40% chance of actually making the journey alive to be sold as slaves.
Many slaves became seasick or developed diarrhea. Unable to move because they were chained into their positions, the slave's deck became a stinking mass of human waste. Slaves who had developed sores where their chains had rubbed their skin, had festering wounds often with maggots eating away their flesh.
Conditions on the slave ships were so bad that many slaves decided they would prefer to die, and tried to starve themselves by refusing to eat or try to jumping overboard. However, slaves that would not eat were whipped or force fed and the traders and ship owners began fixing nets to the sides of the boat so that the slaves could not jump overboard. Slaves had no choice but to endure the horrific conditions.