Photo Essay

When the slaves were captured from their villages, they were chained together. The slaves were forced to walk with blood or urine running down their naked bodies. The longer they walked the more people joined the walk and the more people who died. The slaves were forced to walk for three months.

While walking for a long time, Aminata helped one nice lady named Sanu give birth to her baby. Aminata was all alone, no help from her mother telling her what to do. Sanu had told Aminata that her mother would be proud of her. Sanu had had a baby girl and had named it after Aminata.

After three months of walking on land, the slaves were taken onto a ship. The men were all put into the slave vessel, they were all chained together. Some men were lying on their backs others on their stomachs, most men were laying on top of each other. Also some men were lying next to other dead men.

After the slaves were on the ship, they were branded. Slaves were taken from their cages and had a hot iron pressed on to them marking them as the slave traders’ property (being branded). They were branded for when they were going to be sold once they were on land again.

When the slaves were on land again they had to work. They had to do back breaking jobs, one of the jobs they had to do was work in an indigo plantation. Aminata was sent to work in an indigo plantation, the indigo was used to colour the slave traders’ clothes a natural dye coming from the plant; indigo.