Slaves didn’t starve, but they didn’t eat well
The slaves carried in their thousands on board the slave ships that crossed the Atlantic were to be sold to plantation owners in America. This meant that they had to arrive healthy, strong and ready to get to work. Or, at least as healthy and strong as could be expected after a harrowing journey. It was for this reason that the slaves were fed daily. The food was, generally speaking, nutritious, even if it was far from tasty.
Beans, dry bread and salted meats were all staples on board the slave ships, plus the crew would also be required to keep the slaves well-hydrated. Losing a slave to thirst or hunger could lead to a crew member being flogged themselves. Ship captains would try and find a balance between keeping their precious human cargo alive and healthy and saving as much money as possible on supplies. For this reason, slaves were often fed the bare minimum. On a French-owned boat, this would usually be a simple stew of oats and maybe even some dried turtle meat, while British crews tended to give their captors small, fatty meals as well as generous rations of water.
However, slaves would often be simply too sick to eat. Or, in many cases, they would refuse the food offered to them. Going in hunger strike was often the only act of resistance open to a slave and many saw being in control of their own bodies as a small victory against their captors. To get around this, crew members would use a special tool called a ‘speculum oris’. This long, thin piece of metal would open the throat up, allowing them to get thin, semi-nutritious gruel down a slave’s throat while other men held him down and still.
Olaudah Equiano, who provided one of the most harrowing first-hand testimonies from the height of the slave trade, revealed that forced feeding was commonplace on slave ships. Indeed, when he himself wanted just to be left to die, he was forced to eat by his captors. He recalled: “I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely.”