My Journey to the Americas PDF

Download F3 My journey to the Americas Here is an account of how an enslaved person experienced her journey to the Ame...

Download F3 My journey to the Americas Here is an account of how an enslaved person experienced her journey to the American colonies. Although this account is fictional, many enslaved people had similar experiences. My name used to be Ajani, but now I carry the name Mary Braddock. Mary is a typical English woman’s name, I was told, and Braddock is my master’s last name. I am 17 years old. I lived in a village in a country that the white men call Dahomey1 before I was captured in 1689. The men that took us came from a country called England, but we had also heard of Dutch and Portuguese ships before, and we had heard stories of people disappearing from their villages. Now, they had come for us. The English slave traders brought us, my parents and me, to the nearest port. They took all my belongings and shaved my head. Then they pushed me over a ramp that led onto the deck of the biggest ship I had ever seen. The crew members called our journey the ‘Middle Passage’. I had never travelled on water before, so I felt sick to my stomach as soon as the huge ship started moving. As the night came, my mother and I were separated from my father, and we were brought to different parts of the ship. There were people that had been captured elsewhere and that had been in the darkness of the ship for weeks already. I tried talking to some of them, but they did not speak my language. But they all had one thing in common: they all looked terrible. Some were covered in pox, some were apparently sick with yellow fever. The smell was overwhelming, and the heat was beyond anything I had ever experienced. A crew member pushed me to the floor and I had to stay there for most of the journey. We, the captured, were all chained together, which limited our movement just like the low ceilings made it impossible for us to stand up or even sit upright. We could only lay there, skin to skin in the darkness. I wasn’t sure how long I could survive this hell. During the day, we were forced to work on deck or do absurd dancing for the crew. The crew imitated us, they laughed and enjoyed our humiliation2. During the night, we were brought back inside and had to suffer the stench3 and heat and the nightmares. Death was omnipresent on this ship. A girl jumped overboard once she saw the opportunity. When she stood on deck and looked down into the cold water, it must have seemed like the better option compared to the whip of the crew or the stench and burning heat of the ship’s interior. She must have drowned; the ship was miles away from shore. My mother got sick with yellow fever and died after a few weeks. My father pushed down a crew member who tried to beat him for “stealing” fresh water. Other men joined him and attacked other crew members. Together, they tried to take over the ship. However, the crew members had weapons and our men were weak from sickness and work, and so the revolt was stopped before it truly began. My father was blamed for the turmoil4 and pushed overboard as a punishment. The death of my beloved parents was the most hurtful thing I had ever experienced. The pain caused by losing my parents hurt more than the whip, it was heavier than the chains. I was now an orphan5, being taken to an unknown land and unsure of what would happen to me. After months at sea, we finally reached land: we arrived at a town called New Orleans. Not all of those who had left the port with me were still there, many had died on the way over. A few days after our arrival, I was sold at a slave auction to an English family named Braddock that had settled in the American colonies. They took me to their home, but that’s another story … 1 Dahomey ancient kingdom in the region where Benin is today 2 humiliation Demütigung 3 stench Gestank 4 turmoil Tumult 5 orphan Waise © Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2022 | www.klett.de Von dieser Druckvorlage ist die Vervielfältigung für den eigenen Unterrichts­ Textquelle: Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart Bildquelle: ShutterStock.com RF, New York (Black Creator 24) 1/1 gebrauch gestattet. Die Kopiergebühren sind abgegolten. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.