I remember my story of how I became a slave, here it is. I was in Niger and I was a prisoner of war. I was then sold to some British merchant by the ruler of the village I was a prisoner of. They made us all march to this boat. I had thought about running away until I saw someone else try to run away. They were shot and killed. After that the thought of running away left my mind. When we got to this boat it did not look big enough for the large crowd of people gathered before it. I thought that there was no way that we would fir. The boat was designed for nearly five hundred people and there were at least six hundred here. We all were then chained to the floor and packed together like sardines. There were people next to me, in front of me, and behind me. Almost the whole ship was like this. We had very little space to ourselves. We all went to the bathroom in our spots and the smell was horrific. Then finally after about two months we reached the Americas. About a fifth of the ship had died of disease. We got off and were each put on auction to be sold to the highest bidder. I was then sold to a rich plantation owner who grew tobacco and cotton. He showed me that I would be staying in a wooden hut, with dirt floors, and no beds or any furniture. I would also be staying with another family. There were twelve people in my wooden shack. My “master” as we were told to address him gave me my yearly clothes. I got two shirts, one pair of pants, and one pair of shoes. I also got my monthly amount of food. I got some corn meals and some over salted varieties of meats. I then had my first day of work in the field. We worked from sun up to sun down. This was about eighteen hours. We were encouraged by our “master” to marry. If you ask me he just wanted us to get married and have children so he would have free slaves. I also learned the punishments of the plantation. If you disobeyed any rules set you would be beaten or whipped. If you tried to run away and were caught you would be whipped, beaten, and branded. The worse punishment was if you rebelled. You would almost always be killed without any question. When you were whipped, you were whipped about thirty times. I had one hope though when I came and that was to learn to read and write. We were not allowed to be taught this, however, it was illegal for some odd reason. The same thing happened day in and day out. Except sometimes on Sunday we were let to go to other plantations and converse with others. Well, that’s my story of being a slave. It definitely isn’t the happiest tale.