These doctors received bonuses according to the number of Africans who survived the journey. The Slave Trade Act, 1788 was passed and controlled the number of captives a ship was permitted to carry, according to its weight.ĭolben's Act also ordered all slave ships to carry a doctor who had to keep records about the enslaved Africans on board. He described horrors of enslaved people chained hand and foot, stowed like herrings in a barrel and stricken with putrid and fatal disorders. In 1788 British MP William Dolben put forward a bill to regulate conditions on board slave ships. It is estimated that 15–16 per cent of enslaved people died on the Middle Passage. The conditions for enslaved Africans crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the Middle Passage were brutal and deadly. The death rate among the enslaved people however, was horrific. Sickness on board a slave ship would often spread to the crew as well, killing many. Some enslaved people chose to take their own lives, sometimes by throwing themselves overboard, rather than endure such brutal treatment.Any resistance was dealt with harshly by floggings from the crew. Enslaved people were sometimes forced to dance on deck for an hour a day to keep them fit.The crew's treatment of enslaved people was often horrific – women could be subject to rape.
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