Traders on the slave ships and masters on the plantations showed lack of humanitarian concern, prejudice and racism towards the slaves. Their main concern was to make the land owners a profit.
Conditions for slaves on the Atlantic crossing were horrific:
Former slave Olaudah Equiano recorded how when the ship was fully laden with cargo, they were all put under deck and:
...the stench of the hold, the heat and the crowding, which meant that each had scarcely room to turn, almost suffocated us. The air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died. This wretched situation was aggravated by the rubbing of the chains and the filth of the lavatory tubs into which children often fell. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole scene of horror almost inconceivable.Equiano (1789)
The horrific conditions in the Atlantic crossing arose from a combination of: