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It’s estimated that 307,000 reached our shores alive. Capacity was often figured by weight! Historians have estimated that over two million African captives died at sea. The English slave ship Brookes carried as many as 609 captives to the New World in one trip. Some countries finally passed laws improving conditions aboard so that near the end of the slave trade the death rate was lowered to one out of 18.
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The sharks quickly recognized the easy meals and often followed ships to ports. The conditions were so terrible captives brought to the deck for exercise often chose to leap over the side to the sharks. The bodies of the dead each day were tossed over the side. In the early days of the slave trade one in five captives died aboard ship. They could drink all of the rainwater they were exposed to. They had a large swallow of water in the morning and one in the afternoon. The captives were fed molasses and mush combinations twice a day. Conditions were absolutely appalling, made worse by fevers, dysentery, sea sickness, and diseases such as smallpox, The average trip took six weeks. Naked men were often so packed in they had to rest between the legs of other captives where they ate, defecated, urinated, and vomited during storms.In many ships they could not lie down. In good weather the naked men were brought to the main deck to exercise. The naked women and children were often imprisoned in holds below the main deck or on deck because they were considered less valuable. On boarding the slave ship in chains, the cargo was stripped naked and examined by the captain and someone acting as “surgeon.” All of the naked men were taken below decks to cargo holds, sometimes only 3.5 feet high, and secured by leg irons. During those years an estimated 12.5 million blacks from Africa were loaded on slave ships that used the “Middle Passage” trade winds of the Atlantic to bring them to slave markets in South America, the Caribbean islands, and dozens of ports in the United States. That’s not fake history, folks, but in a white supremacist country, that’s the kind of history we are not taught.
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Board a pontoon-style boat with a three-inch-thick glass floor to view the fish and sharks that call the lagoon home.How Did Sharks Know The Middle Passage Route Of Slave Ships?īecause they ate a lot of living and dead naked Africans for 350 years who either jumped off slave ships or were dumped off dead. Visit the Shark Lagoon at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies and you'll delve into the experience in a whole new way. Come and see for yourself this don't miss experience that is-literally-over the top! Dare you to cross the SkyBridge: the longest North American suspension bridge with a section of glass-bottomed panels! Can you "pass the glass"? SkyTrail is a wooden scenic walkway that follows the slope of Crockett Mountain, with Phase 2 coming soon offering even more. Sk圜enter is a 2-level gift shop, snack bar and rest area for relaxing with a view. What's old is completely new again with so much more! The mountainside chairlift opened in 1954, and has been completely renovated to a three-seat chair ride to reach an exciting new summit at the SkyDeck veranda, overlooking the town and surrounding mountains.