Glossary

An auction is where people bid on different items to buy them.  The person who bids the most money will win the item.

In a slave auction, slaves from the boat are lined up on a stage and people examine them.  Slave owners will bid on the slaves they like and will buy the ones they want.

A country in Africa

Unexpectedly met with

Food prepared by boiling oats, wheat or rye flour, or rice with water or milk.  It is a thin porridge or oatmeal.

Does this sound delicious? NO WAY!

Causing terror, fear

An ethnic group of people living in West Africa

This is a simile that explains how the slaves were packed tightly into a small space.  If  people are "like sardines," that means that they don't have much room to move and are smushed together, like the sardines (small fish you can eat) in the picture.

A large farm, mostly in the South, where cotton, tobacco, coffee, or sugar cane are (usually) grown.

Slaves often worked on Southern plantations.

Barely, not quite

Caused to stop breathing, blocked someone's nose/mouth so one cannot breathe

The speculum orum is a device used to hold someone's mouth open while someone else shoves food down their throat to force feed them.  This picture shows someone being force fed.