A Look Into How Slaves Were Treated When They Arrived in North America Essay

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Seasoning Process

How did the African slaves receive guidance, physical preparedness, and social support ("seasoning") as they were brought from their home continent to the Americas? This paper covers the transition from freedom to slavery, and how Africans were given certain tools to help them handle the raw socialized cruelty from freedom to being put on ships and transported to North America.

What are the phases of the "Seasoning Process"?

While no readily available reference cited a specific "five phases" of the seasoning process, there clearly are at least five phases that can be reported. According to Assistant Professor Brenda E. Stevenson, the first phase of seasoning began "before many [slaves] reached Virginia," and she is referencing the "harsh lessons learned during the Middle Passage." Going through the sickness from new surroundings caused many slaves to suffer from pneumonia, malaria, smallpox, sickle cell anemia, typhus, worm infestations, whooping cough, dysentery, along with " ... a host of venereal and gynecological aliments" (Stevenson 1996).

In the Tripod research publication (From Africa to Slavery) one could count the second phase of the seasoning process: "The slaves were bathed so that they could be clean when they are put up for auction"; the males got a shave and were wiped down with palm oil so their wounds " ... from the journey" would not be so obvious. The third phase would be meeting the master (after he purchased the slave at an auction), and shown (either by native-born slaves or experienced slaves that had already been well seasoned) how to do the field labor, working with tobacco, rice, wheat, oats, and helping to raise livestock.

In the process of this acculturation, a fourth phase might well be described as being " ... beaten into submission until the new slave broke" (Tripod). A fifth phase is described by R.A. Glasgow in the book Guyana: Race and Politics among Africans and East Indians. Being introduced into the plantation culture entailed learning the work, the new language, a new diet, and the mores of the plantation culture; most new slaves were put in the care of "an experienced Creole slave who looked with a degree of scorn" on the new slaves.

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Most every slave was given trousers, a jacket, a shirt and a hat, and the experienced Creole slave provided food, tobacco, and other necessary items, to provide a degree of comfort in the new and shocking situation the slaves faced (Glasgow 2012).

The "seasoning sickness" experience

In professor Gad Heuman's book, The Slavery Reader Volume 1, he talks of "seasoning sickness," which would have taken place likely before the slave reached North America. There was a belief on the part of Europeans that since African slaves would in time contract diseases that hadn't built up immunities for, they needed to be sickened by a "tropical disease" to build up immunity (Curtin, 2003). Once they had gotten through that first tropical disease, they then had " ... the expectation of better health"; moreover, planters who paid for slaves believed slaves would be stronger and live longer once the "seasoning sickness" had been tested (Curtin 23). The rule of thumb was that seasoned slaves "commanded higher prices" than those slaves that had just arrived off the boats that were part of the Middle Passage (Curtin 23).

Curtin explains that it was the expectation that slaves living in the "tropical America" regions would produce a population " ... capable of growth by natural increase," but it didn't turn out that way; in fact, the slave trade was necessary not just to help planters harvest tropical staples, but to "maintain the population level" (Curtin, 25).

Looking deeper into the concept of "seasoning" for arriving slaves

The Africans that arrived in North America a hundred years prior to the War of Independence initially resisted being enslaved, which is not a surprise at all, but their rebellion (prior to seasoning) was significant, according to Professor Paul Mocombe. In fact, prior to seasoning -- or in some cases in spite of seasoning -- there were " ... over 250 revolts" in the New World, Mocombe writes on page 21. Slaves broke tools, destroyed crops, pretended to be ill or ignorant, stole property, conducted strikes, engaged in "self-mutilation," poisoned slaveholding families and started fires (Mocombe, 21).

All of these acts were designed.....

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