10. Captains and ship builders began to improve conditions aboard ship in the mid-18th century
By 1750, with the transatlantic slave trade nearing its peak, shipbuilders and captains, driven by investors, looked for ways to improve conditions aboard their ships. Their reasons were far from altruistic. By 1750 American slave owners paid between $800 and $1,200 for enslaved Africans at auction (equivalent to $32-$48 thousand today). The shippers and investors of the day did not consider the enslaved Africans as human, nor did they care about their comforts. But they did care about delivering profitable cargo to market. Since most slave ships were relatively small, in order to navigate African rivers, they could not increase the size of the cargoes profitably. Instead, they sought ways to lower the mortality rate among those making the Middle Passage. One way was to improve conditions aboard the ships.
In the second half of the 18th century many British and French slave traders began to reduce the number of Africans carried on their ships. The storage decks, as they were called, were divided into smaller sections, each holding smaller groups of Africans. Open lattices created the sections, allowing improved airflow. Ports through the ship’s sides provided additional fresh air and could be closed in heavy weather by the ship’s crew. As noted earlier, some Captains initiated the requirement for exercise among the captives, though these were often met with defiance. The overriding concern among those involved in the slave trade was profit. None were particularly concerned with the conditions endured by the enslaved Africans beyond ensuring they remained profitable upon arrival in the Americas. Alleviating the conditions of the Middle Passage was part of that goal.