98 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA
the forward deck on which the males, fettered in pairs, were occasionally
allowed to exercise; and the rear section or quarterdeck, where the females
were given relatively more freedom. When that task was finished, the car-
penter hammered together a rack or platform on which the male slaves
would be forced to lie. On The Diligenteach captive had about 2 feet of
headroom above the rack on which he slept and a horizontal space of only
about 1 foot by 5 feet so that he had to “spoon in” on his side with another
captive.
Conditions on any one of the 36,000 or so voyages could hardly have
been exceeded by conditions on Devil’s Island or in a Nazi or Soviet con-
centration camp. Slaves were fed only a gruel that left them vulnerable to
scurvy, were so jammed together that the sickness of any one quickly
spread to all, and at the first sign of resistance received a ghastly and usually
lethal punishment. The younger women were almost always raped by the
crew. Not surprisingly, many slaves attempted suicide by jumping over-
board to the sharks or by attempting to starve themselves to death. The
death rate was appalling. Perhaps 15 percent, or upwards of 2 million, died
on the journeys.