Cargo of the Living Dead ; Raped at Will, Tortured with White-Hot Forks, They Were Thrown to the Sharks If They Dared to Die. A New Book Reveals the Unspeakable Horror of Life On a Slave Ship

Summary

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LOUIS ASA-ASA was 13 when his happiness ended. One day, warriors converged on his home far from the sea. They set fire to the huts, killing and capturing villagers. He escaped into the forest, the only child to survive.

A few days later the warriors found Louis. They manacled him into a slave train which slowly made its way to the coast. 'I was sold six times over, sometimes for money, sometimes for cloth, sometimes for a gun,' he recalled. 'We were taken from place to place and sold at every place we stopped at.' It took Louis six months to reach the 'white people' and their 'very large ship'.

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Cargo of the Living Dead ; Raped at Will, Tortured with White-Hot Forks, They Were Thrown to the Sharks If They Dared to Die. A New Book Reveals the Unspeakable Horror of Life On a Slave Ship

Ukawsaw, about the same age, lived in northern Nigeria, up near Lake Chad. The grandson of the local king, he was mesmerised by the magical tales told by a visiting merchant. Vividly, the man described white people who lived in houses on the water which had wings upon them.

His family let Ukawsaw go with the merchant, who told no more tales but dragged the boy to the Gold Coast where Ukawsaw was enslaved.

A Dutch captain sold him in Barbados for 50 dollars. Olaudah, also Nigerian, was only 11 when slave traders carried him aboard a slave ship.

He was grabbed by members of the crew, 'white men with horrible looks, red face...

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