Right, so you probably know about the horrendous conditions aboard slave ships, which at their largest could hold 400 people. But it's worth underscoring that each slave had an average of four square feet of space. That is four square feet. As one eyewitness testified before Parliament in 1791, they had not so much room as a man in his coffin. Once in the Americas, the surviving slaves were sold at a market very similar to the way cattle would be sold. After purchase, slave owners would often brand their new possession on the cheeks, again, just as they would do with cattle. The lives of slaves were dominated by work and terror, but mostly work.