Seasoning, or The Seasoning, was the period of adjustment that slave traders and slaveholders subjected

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slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to per ...

s to following their arrival in the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with t ...

. While modern scholarship has occasionally applied this term to the brief period of acclimatization undergone by European immigrants to the Americas, it most frequently and formally referred to the process undergone by enslaved people. Slave traders used "seasoning" in this colonial context to refer to the process of adjusting the enslaved Africans to the new climate, diet, geography, and ecology of the Americas. The term applied to both the physical acclimatization of the enslaved person to the environment and that person's adjustment to a new

social environment The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...

, labor regimen, and language. Slave traders and owners believed that, if a person survived this critical period of environmental seasoning, they were less likely to die and the psychological element would make them more easily controlled. This process took place immediately after the arrival of enslaved people during which their mortality rates were particularly high. These "new" or "saltwater" slaves were called "outlandish" on arrival. Those who survived this process became "seasoned", and typically commanded a higher price in the market. For example, in eighteenth century Brazil, the price differential between "new" and "seasoned" slaves was about fifteen percent.

Regional variance

Atlantic Creole Atlantic Creole is a cultural identifier of those with origins in the transatlantic settlement of the Americas via Europe and Africa.Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...

. With the expansion of the slave trade in the mid-eighteenth century, the nature of slavery changed. Operating on a larger scale, slave traders transported enslaved Africans to various European colonies throughout the Americas (both before and after the

decolonization of the Americas The decolonization of the Americas occurred over several centuries as most of the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. The American Revolution was the first in the Americas, and the British defeat in the Amer ...

), systematizing both the voyage and the process of seasoning, though it varied locationally and temporally. While slave traders and owners practiced seasoning in both North and South America, it was not practiced consistently in the Southern Colonies where

planters Planters Nut & Chocolate Company is an American snack food company now owned by Hormel Foods. Planters is best known for its processed nuts and for the Mr. Peanut icon that symbolizes them. Mr. Peanut was created by grade schooler Antonio Gent ...

often forced "new" slaves to work immediately upon their arrival to the colonies. Slave traders and slaveowners adopted the term "seasoning" during the transatlantic slave trade when newly arrived slaves died at high rates in the years following disembarkation. Death rates differed among regions in the Americas, though both the

Middle Passage The Middle Passage was the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods (first ...

and the seasoning period were exceptionally deadly across the Americas. A "Dr. Collins" writing in 1803 attributed the high mortality rates to disease, change in climate, diet, labor, "severity," and suicide. In the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centu ...

, death rates during seasoning were at an estimated 25 to 50 percent. In

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbe ...

, deaths in a single year were between 7 and 12 percent while the mortality rate reached as high as 33 percent in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispanio ...

. In Brazil, an estimated 25 percent of enslaved people died during the seasoning process, where the law also required that slaves be baptized during their first year in Brazil.

Diet

A contemporary observer noted that seasoning was a "training not only to hard work, but to scanty diet." Slaveowners drastically limited the slaves' diets, both in breadth and depth, to the diet of the plantations, which was chiefly composed of maize, rice, or flour. Battered by this inadequate diet, enslaved people often suffered "dropsies" (

edema Edema, also spelled oedema, and also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling, is the build-up of fluid in the body's tissue. Most commonly, the legs or arms are affected. Symptoms may include skin which feels tight, the area ma ...

) and "fluxes" (

diarrhea Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin w ...

), compounding their severe and widespread

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...

Disease

Newly arrived slaves experienced high rates of disease and death during the seasoning process. During the

, slave traders forced enslaved Africans to live in tight quarters without ventilation, sufficient food, or water, and with no opportunity for hygiene. In such conditions, enslaved people often contracted

scurvy Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...

amoebic dysentery Amoebiasis, or amoebic dysentery, is an infection of the intestines caused by a parasitic amoeba '' Entamoeba histolytica''. Amoebiasis can be present with no, mild, or severe symptoms. Symptoms may include lethargy, loss of weight, colonic ul ...

; of which amoebic dysentery, or the "bloody flux," claimed the most lives. Once ashore, enslaved people lived in appalling conditions similar to those of the

. Underfed and exposed to a new ecology, enslaved people then had to battle the new climate and forced hard labor. Weakened by the voyage and immediate brutality of slavery, many enslaved people died of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

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influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...

, and unidentified diseases at high rates in the first several years after arrival.

Labor and violence

Though it took many different forms, seasoning universally involved the further commodification of human beings and their preparation by enslavers for the marketplace and labor. Enslavers accomplished this preparation by treating their slaves harshly, subjecting them to a brutal regimen of training and violence. Lasting between one and three years, this process of adjustment was physically and psychologically taxing, marked by brutality and coercion. Slaveholders resorted to force and violence in order to subdue the "saltwater" slaves and extract their labor. Enslavers regularly beat slaves, maimed them, and placed them in stocks or solitary confinement. In one particularly cruel practice, the slaveholder would whip a naked woman, often pregnant, and pour salt, pepper, or wax into her open wounds. In addition to violence, enslaved people had to adjust to hard labor over the seasoning period. In the Caribbean, newly arrived slaves were given baskets for fertilizing the sugar fields the week they arrived. This was the first step in the essential process of training the new arrivals in the technologies of sugar cultivation. Elsewhere, too, enslaved people were taught how to cultivate and process crops, often including the ones meant to sustain the enslaved population during the seasoning. Over the seasoning period, slaveowners wanted their slaves to acquire both knowledge of the labor and to become accustomed to the extreme workload. Training did not only take the form of labor. Enslaved people were also taught the language of the colony either by other slaves who had already undergone the seasoning process or by the white overseers of the plantation.

Resistance

Though constantly threatened with beatings and further ill-treatment, enslaved people resisted their enslavement in the seasoning in several visible ways. Scholars have considered widespread suicide among newly enslaved people an act of resistance. Indeed, enslavers feared suicide alongside disease, and contemporary manuals for the seasoning included recommendations for improving an enslaved person's "disposition" to best avoid suicide. Hunger plagued enslaved people during and after the seasoning and reports of food theft at any opportunity -- and the beatings from enslavers that followed such thefts -- were common. Still others refused to eat entirely and were similarly punished. Runaway attempts were common, though these recently enslaved arrivals rarely escaped successfully, as they had little familiarity with their surroundings and were isolated on the major plantations of the Americas.

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