British Surgeon Describes The Treatment Of Slaves During The Middle Passage Analysis

The article “British Surgeon Describes the Treatment of Slaves during the Middle Passage (Excerpts),” is an article of excerpts from a first-person account book, An Account of The African Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (1788) by Alexander Falconbridge, thus making it a reliable source for the described time period of transatlantic slave trade. There is no better individual to recount on this information, besides a slave themselves. Falconbridge was a surgeon on the traveling slave ships and spent a lot of time with the slaves in their quarters. He “frequently went down among [the slaves]” to perform his job as it was necessary and “soon after fell sick of the same [illnesses]” due to the large number of slaves who attracted illnesses (Falconbridge). This article serves as a primary source due to Falconbridge’s direct contact with the written material. Finding a more reliable source for this quality of information would be extremely challenging. Falconbridge vaguely describes the acts of lewd behavior towards the women onboard. He never expressly mentions the details of the forceful actions. Divulging into the acts …show more content…
He was able to build his reasoning for the abolishment of slave trade. The more information he was able to collect the more credible his argument would become. His multiple trips helped outline, with explicit details, the lives of African slaves who are captured and taken all across the Atlantic Ocean to be used for harsh manual labor. Slaves were uneducated in the English language and could not recount on the trade of their fellow countrymen, thus leaving a surgeon who is in constant contact with the sickly-ravished slaves, to detail their travels. Taking many trips in the conditions of the sea are not ideal, but in order to leave the biggest impact on his forthcomings the multitude of trips were