Everyone does something once in their life that they wish they haven't done. When people are young they do dumb things sometimes, and when they look back on it as that person gets older they regret what was done. As a young country, the United States had made mistakes as well. One of the biggest mistakes was the slave trades'. The slave trade was extremely grueling on the Africans, especially in the aspects of the crossing, their lifestyles, and the diseases that were caught along the way.
             "The United States brought a little less than 500,000 slaves from Africa."(3) Ships brought all the Africans at this time. With this many Africans on one boat it was a pretty tight space, and also the heat didn't really help with this situation. All of this made it extremely hard to breathe, it nearly suffocated them. They practically had to sleep on top of each other.
             Don't just think that the Americans would let them have a free ride over to America with just tight sleeping quarters. Everyday they had chores to do, like wash and clean the deck daily.(1) This would be torture in the hot sun especially since most of the slave had to travel naked.(1) There were many more duties of their everyday life on the boats. Well at least the nine months they were on there.
             The slaves eating habits were slim to none. "Two mealtimes a day and they had to wash their hands in saltwater."(1) The meals were not filling. Their was also punishment for the slaves who weren't eating. They would use occasional distribution of brandy or tobacco and also rinse their mouths out with vinegar.(1) The Americans shouldn't have forced them to eat. They should of let the slaves eat if they wanted too, but then again the slaves had no say in what they could or could not do.
             The treatments were very brutal toward the slaves, as if one couldn't already tell. "They had weekly shavings but with out ...