Malaria 65traders. Factors were freelance businessmen of a sort. Th e
Royal African Company issued instructions to factors to
not overcrowd slave vessels. How responsive factors were to
these sets of instructions remains an unanswered question.
See also: Abolition, Slave Trade; Atlantic Slave Trade; Fac-
tor; Royal African Company; Tight PackMichael A. CookeBibliography
Feelings, Tom. Th e Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo. With
Introduction by John Henrik Clarke. New York: Dial Books,
1995.
Mannix, Daniel P. Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave
Trade, 151 8– 1 865. In collaboration with Malcolm Cowley.
New York: Viking Press, 1965.
Palmer, Colin A. Human Cargoes: Th e British Slave Trade to Spanish
America, 1 700– 1739. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.Malaria
Malaria derives its name from the Italian mal-aria, meaning
“bad air.” Yet it is actually a Protozoan disease that is spread
by the Anolpheles mosquito. Centuries ago it was common
in the marshy areas around Rome, hence the Italian origins
of the name, and because of this connection, malaria was
also called Roman Fever.
Th e minuscule Protozoa that causes the disease is of a
parasitic variety known as Plasmodium and alternatively
aff ects both human and insect hosts. Th e developmental
age of the disease is unknown, but it is very ancient and is
believed to have originated in Africa and spread over the
centuries with human migration to the Mediterranean,
India, and Southeast Asia. Th ere are four types of malaria:
plasmodium vivax, plasmodium.ovale, plasmodium malar-
iae, and plasmodium falciparum.
Malaria has a worldwide impact and is now endemic in
Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and India. It is cur-
rently estimated that some 500 million people in these areas
are exposed to malaria. One estimate of the human cost is
2.5 million deaths a year with approximately 1 million children
succumbing to the illness. Th e destruction of the Anolpheles
and their breeding grounds by pesticides remains the best
control technique. Some critics challenge environmental
policies that have limited pesticide use and specifi cally, DDT,
which was an eff ective and cheap disease control agent.Loose Pack
One of the more intriguing historical issues connected to
the Atlantic slave trade is whether loose pack or tight pack
materially increased or decreased mortality during the
course of Middle Passage. Since the 1960s a debate has
ensued based upon contemporary accounts, and scholars
have positioned themselves pro or con. Revisionist schol-
ars have assessed the loose pack versus tight pack issue in a
manner less cut and dry than the initial arguments.
Historian Daniel P. Mannix in his book titled Black
Cargoes, published in 1965, presented the position of both
advocates of tight pack and loose pack. Slave traders who
favored loose pack believed that maximizing space onboard
slave vessels, providing better nutrition, and allowing some
latitude for slaves to exercise during their forced confi ne-
ment would eff ectively reduce Middle Passage mortality.
Consequently, advocates of loose pack believed that they
received a better price for surviving slaves. Decades aft er
Mannix wrote his seminal work on the Middle Passage,
some scholars continue to expound on the philosophy of
slave traders who practiced loose pack.
Contemporaries during Middle Passage likewise took
sides on the debate. Loose pack had its share of support-
ers. For instance, Th omas Weaver, a slave trade agent, wrote
offi cials of the Royal African Company that the spatial al-
lotments on slave vessels were insuffi cient and that over-
crowding contributed to unnecessary mortality during
Middle Passage. On several occasions, Weaver sent letters
of complaint about overcrowding. While there is no direct
evidence that the Royal African Company agreed or took
any substantive steps to address Weaver’s concerns about
sanitation aboard the company’s slave vessels, the company
did theoretically respond to other similar inquires.
About the same time period that Weaver expressed
concerns about the sanitation onboard slave vessels, Sir
Dalby Th omas, a prominent English politician, thought the
tight pack philosophy would illicit negative critiques based
on moral concerns. He wrote offi cials of the Royal African
Company to instruct their agents not to overcrowd slave
vessels. However, agents being employed on a commission
basis had a vested interest to maximize slave cargo. Th ere-
fore, the company had to fi nd another means to get com-
pliance with its wishes. Th us, company offi cials contacted
factors, white men who bartered directly with African slave