Middle Passage is a novel by Charles Johnson, the story is told via ship log entries by Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave and thief in early 19th century.
Rutherford is freed slave from New Orleans, who does not have opportunities, he tries to find a job but people do not want to give a job to a freed slave, so he becomes a thief. Calhoun has a girlfriend, and she is putting so much pressure on him to get married and he owes a lot to a creditor.
To escape those he is indebted (Papa) to as well as a marriage with, the school teacher, Isadora he is being forced to run away, he sneaks aboard an outbound ship, The Republic. He quickly finds out that the ship is put on the sea and it is a slaver headed for Africa, led by midget captain Falcon. He is an insane captain, and nobody into the ship can stand him not even his own crew.
After leaving Africa with 40 slaves, treasure, and an African "god," the ship suffers many hardships, including mutiny, slave takeover, bad weather, illness, cannibalism, and mystical mumbo jumbo brought on by the "god. I think this part of the book has the main objective to show how bad were the conditions that the slaves lived aboard the ship, a lot of them died and suffered with diseases.
After a while the ship goes down and few people are rescued, and Rutherford is one of them. Coincidentally aboard this ship are Isadora and Papa, who are about to get married. Papa finds out that Rutherford knows about his relationship with the illegal slave trade, so he gives up and let Calhoun to marry Isadora.
The book is a wonderful adventure story. It is hard to imagine but I think the book tells about slavery in a humorous way. It is a fictional story but sometimes the journey becomes so real that Charles Johnson really made me feel like one of the crew of the ship. Like with any adventure there is a romance, that looks like will not to work, but in the end everything works out well.
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