Explain the inherent contradiction between conditions on slave ships during the Middle Passage and the business of slave trading.

Read Chapters 1 and 2 and pay particular attention to the section called “VOICES: Dysentery (or the Bloody Flux)” in Chapter 2. Once all reading is complete, respond to the following:

Explain the inherent contradiction between conditions on slave ships during the Middle Passage and the business of slave trading.
Could slave traders have avoided the suffering described in this passage?