He was not able to benefit from this age because he was treated terribly by his European captors. Equiano was kidnapped from his homeland and was forced on a slave ship with dreadful conditions. The men, women, and children on this ship were treated worse than animals. They were packed in the bottom of the ship without food or water. Some died from starvation or suffocating from the hot air and awful odors of the ship. If someone tried to escape, kill themselves, or refuse to eat, they would face severe punishment and whippings. These slaves were treated as if they were completely disposable. Equiano recalls, “One white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute.” As I read about this boy’s experience on this ship, it is tough to compare the European explorer’s experience to Equiano’s, because it seems like they were from two different worlds. As I stated before, only one of these groups got to benefit from this Age of Discovery. Both the European explorers’ impressions of Native Americans and the African slave’s perception of their European captors were similar because they did have to experience an unfamiliar people, but what they saw in each other was very
He was not able to benefit from this age because he was treated terribly by his European captors. Equiano was kidnapped from his homeland and was forced on a slave ship with dreadful conditions. The men, women, and children on this ship were treated worse than animals. They were packed in the bottom of the ship without food or water. Some died from starvation or suffocating from the hot air and awful odors of the ship. If someone tried to escape, kill themselves, or refuse to eat, they would face severe punishment and whippings. These slaves were treated as if they were completely disposable. Equiano recalls, “One white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute.” As I read about this boy’s experience on this ship, it is tough to compare the European explorer’s experience to Equiano’s, because it seems like they were from two different worlds. As I stated before, only one of these groups got to benefit from this Age of Discovery. Both the European explorers’ impressions of Native Americans and the African slave’s perception of their European captors were similar because they did have to experience an unfamiliar people, but what they saw in each other was very