3. Read the two passages from primary sources about the Atlantic slave trade and
make a historical argument based on the information they contain. Then compare
how the two sources interpret the events described. (4 points)
Passage 1: Olaudah Equlano
This passage is from the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, an African man sold
into slavery
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the
coast was the sea, and a slave ship waiting for its cargo.
These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted
into terror.... I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if
I were sound by some of the crew, and I was now persuaded that
I had got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to
kill me.
I was soon put down under the decks, and there i
received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never
experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the
stench, and with my crying together, I became so sick and low
that I was not able to eat 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 and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet,
while the other flogged me severely. But still feared I should
be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought
in so savage a manner, for I had never seen such instances of
brutal cruelty, and this is not only shown towards us blacks, but
also to some of the whites themselves,
