(upbeat music) (TV static blaring) (bold orchestra music) (TV dial clicking) (bold orchestra music) (draperies rustling) >>"Americans from Africa: A History."

(TV dial clicking) >>Now the middle passage, the part of the trip from Africa to the New World, was a voyage of horrors with great overcrowding.

With an estimate that about 12% of the slaves died on each of these voyages.

With some captains packing in as many of possible, figuring that some were going to die anyway.

With others trying to pack in fewer, in order to cut down the risk of epidemic and disease.

An English reformer, the Reverend John Newton, described the overcrowding as he saw it on slave ships that he visited in ports.

>>The cargo, a vessel of 100 tons, or a little more, is calculated to purchase from 220 to 250 slaves.

The slaves lay in two rows, one above the other.

On each side of the ship, close to each other like books upon a shelf.

I have noted so close that the shelf would not easily contain one more.

The poor creatures, thus cramped, are likewise in irons for the most part.

Which makes it difficult for them to turn or move about, or attempt to rise and lay down, without hurting themselves or each other.

Every morning, perhaps, more instances than one, are found of the living and the dead fastened together.