Editing Atlantic slave trade (section)

===Atlantic shipment===
[[File:A Liverpool Slave Ship by William Jackson.jpg|thumb|upright|''A Liverpool Slave Ship'' by William Jackson. [[Merseyside Maritime Museum]]]]

After being captured and held in the factories, slaves entered the infamous [[Middle Passage]]. Meltzer's research puts this phase of the slave trade's overall mortality at 12.5%.<ref name="dup2" /> Their deaths were the result of brutal treatment and poor care from the time of their capture and throughout their voyage.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wolfe |first1=Brendan |title=Slave Ships and the Middle Passage |url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Ships_and_the_Middle_Passage |website=encyclopediavirginia.org |access-date=24 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325130747/http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Slave_Ships_and_the_Middle_Passage |archive-date=25 March 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> Around 2.2&nbsp;million Africans died during these voyages, where they were packed into tight, unsanitary spaces on ships for months at a time.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Duquette |first=Nicolas J. |date=June 2014 |title=Revealing the Relationship Between Ship Crowding and Slave Mortality |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050714000357/type/journal_article |journal=[[The Journal of Economic History]] |language=en |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=535–552 |doi=10.1017/S0022050714000357 |s2cid=59449310 |issn=0022-0507 |access-date=20 February 2021 |archive-date=26 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240726160726/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/revealing-the-relationship-between-ship-crowding-and-slave-mortality/E978DC4E5FE7CC560734D75A277D4787 |url-status=live}}</ref> Measures were taken to stem the onboard mortality rate, such as enforced "dancing" (as exercise) above deck and the practice of force-feeding enslaved persons who tried to starve themselves.<ref name="Gomez" /> The conditions on board also resulted in the spread of fatal diseases. Other fatalities were suicides, slaves who escaped by jumping overboard.<ref name="Gomez" /> The slave traders would try to fit anywhere from 350 to 600 slaves on one ship. Before the African slave trade was completely banned by participating nations in 1853, 15.3&nbsp;million enslaved people had arrived in the Americas.

Raymond L. Cohn, an economics professor whose research has focused on [[economic history]] and [[international migration]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/vitas/rlcohn.html |title=Raymond L. Cohn |website=[[Illinois State University]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070622201438/http://www.econ.ilstu.edu/vitas/rlcohn.html |archive-date=22 June 2007}}</ref> has researched the [[mortality rate]]s among Africans during the voyages of the Atlantic slave trade. He found that mortality rates decreased over the history of the slave trade, primarily because the length of time necessary for the voyage was declining. "In the eighteenth century many slave voyages took at least 2½ months. In the nineteenth century, 2 months appears to have been the maximum length of the voyage, and many voyages were far shorter. Fewer slaves died in the Middle Passage over time mainly because the passage was shorter."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Cohn |first=Raymond L. |title=Deaths of Slaves in the Middle Passage |journal=[[Journal of Economic History]] |date=September 1985 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=685–692 |doi=10.1017/S0022050700034604 |pmid=11617312}}</ref>

Despite the vast profits of slavery, the ordinary sailors on [[slave ship]]s were badly paid and subject to harsh discipline. Mortality of around 20%, a number similar and sometimes greater than those of the slaves,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/atlanticslavetra0000curt/page/282 |title=The Atlantic slave trade: a census |last=Curtin |first=Philip D. |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=1969 |isbn=0-299-05400-4 |location=Madison, WI |pages=[https://archive.org/details/atlanticslavetra0000curt/page/282 282–286] |oclc=46413}}</ref> was expected in a ship's crew during the course of a voyage; this was due to disease, flogging, overwork, or slave uprisings.<ref name="Edwards(Captain.)2007">{{cite book |first=Bernard |last=Edwards |title=Royal Navy Versus the Slave Traders: Enforcing Abolition at Sea 1808–1898 |year=2007 |publisher=Pen & Sword Books |isbn=978-1-84415-633-7 |pages=26–27}}</ref> Disease ([[malaria]] or [[yellow fever]]) was the most common cause of death among sailors. A high crew mortality rate on the return voyage was in the captain's interests as it reduced the number of sailors who had to be paid on reaching the home port.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Bury the Chains: Prophets, Slaves, and Rebels in the First Human Rights Crusade |last=Hochschild |first=Adam |date=2005 |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin]] |isbn=0-618-10469-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/burychainsprophe00hoch/page/94 94] |url=https://archive.org/details/burychainsprophe00hoch/page/94}}</ref>

The slave trade was hated by many sailors, and those who joined the crews of slave ships often did so through coercion or because they could find no other employment.<ref name="Rediker2007">{{cite book |first=Marcus |last=Rediker |title=The Slave Ship: A Human History |date=4 October 2007 |publisher=[[Penguin Publishing Group]] |isbn=978-1-4406-2084-3 |page=138}}</ref>