Question

Compare the two descriptions of travel to America written by Olaudah Equiano and Francis Daniel Pastorius. What can you conclude about the trans-Atlantic passage?

Answer 1

Descriptions given by Olaudah Equiano have clear indications of bad climatic conditions which causes heatwaves and as slaves were kept below the deck, they went through suffocation as well.

While going through the descriptions given by F.D. Pastorius we came to know that the primary problem was storm, contrary wind movement and associated thunderstorms.

From the two descriptions one thing is very clear that their voyage depended upon the resources, facilities, social situations like slave merchandise etc. Also the months in which they travelled matters.

Now leaving the social causes if we emphasise over the oceanographic and meteorological situation that might arise in trans Atlantic passage then we must consider following information.

- An Atlantic hurricane or tropical storm is a tropical cyclone that forms in the Atlantic Ocean, usually between the months of June and November. In such period a low pressure zone is created and air moves inward in spiral shape towards the low pressure zone.

-This type of tropical storms often carries heavy precipitation and thunderstorms with themselves.

Climatology Climatology does serve to characterize the general properties of an average season and can be used as one of many other tools for making forecasts. Most storms form in warm waters several hundred miles north of the equator near the Intertropical convergence zone from tropical waves. The Coriolis force is usually too weak to initiate sufficient rotation near the equator.[25] Storms frequently form in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the tropical Atlantic Ocean as far east as the Cape Verde Islands, the origin of strong and long-lasting Cape Verde-type hurricanes. Systems may also strengthen over the Gulf Stream off the coast of the eastern United States, wherever water temperatures exceed 26.5 °C

There is a strong correlation between Atlantic hurricane activity in the tropics and the presence of an El Niño or La Niña in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño events increase the wind shear over the Atlantic, producing a less-favorable environment for formation and decreasing tropical activity in the Atlantic basin. Conversely, La Niña causes an increase in activity due to a decrease in wind shear.