Imagine that you are an enslaved African on the Middle Passage. Write a short journal entry for a single day describing what you have experienced.

Today, I wished I were dead. We are crowded into a tiny space. Animals are given more room to live. I am chained to the men on either side of me. One is sick. He is burning with fever and groans constantly. When he dies, I will be chained to a dead man. I feel sick, too, but it is only the smell turning my stomach. My nose is filled with the odors of sickness and dirt and human waste. I would give anything for a breath of clean air. But I cannot ask. If I do, I will be whipped until I cannot stand. I am afraid I will not survive this journey.

I am crowded into a tiny space. I am sick with fever. I can smell sickness and human waste. I live in fear of being whipped. I am afraid of death