"An African factor of fair repute," said a slave captain,[8]
"is ever careful to select his human cargo with consummate prudence,
so as not only to supply his employers with athletic laborers, but to
avoid any taint of disease." But the severest test of all was the
hideous "middle passage" which remained to every imported slave a
nightmare to the day of his death. The unhappy captives were crowded
into dark, unventilated holds and were fed scantily on food which was
strange to their lips; they were unable to understand the tongue of
their masters and often unable to understand the dialects of their
companions in misfortune; they were depressed with their helplessness
on the limitless sea, and their childish superstitions were fed by a
thousand new terrors and emotions. It was small wonder that, when
disease began its ravages in the shipload of these kidnaped beings,
"the mortality of thirty per cent was not rare." That this was
primarily a physical selection which made no allowance for mental
aptitudes did not greatly diminish in the eyes of the master the
slave's utility. The new continent needed muscle power; and so tens of
thousands of able-bodied Africans were landed on American soil, alien
to everything they found there.
These slaves were kidnaped from many tribes.
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