Slaves would spend 16 hours a day unable to stand
Slaves would spend 16 hours a day unable to stand Raped at will, tortured with white-hot forks, they were thrown to the sharks if death ended their agony. A new book reveals the true horror of life on a slave ship... Louis Asa-Asa was 13 when his happiness ended. One day, warriors converged on his home far from the sea. They set fire to the huts, killing and capturing villagers. He escaped into the forest, the only child to survive. A few days later the warriors found Louis. They manacled him into a slave train which slowly made its way to the coast. "I was sold six times over, sometimes for money, sometimes for cloth, sometimes for a gun," he recalled. "We were taken from place to place and sold at every place we stopped at." It took Louis six months to reach the "white people" and their "very large ship". Ukawsaw, about the same age, lived in northern Nigeria, up near Lake Chad. The grandson of the local king, he was mesmerised by the magical t...