Not infrequently the slavers themselves turned pirate or privateer for the time--sometimes robbing a smaller craft of its load of slaves, sometimes actually running up the black flag and turning to piracy for a permanent calling.
In addition to the ordinary risks of shipwreck or capture the slavers encountered perils peculiar to their calling.

Once in a while the slaves would mutiny, though such is the gentle and almost childlike nature of the African negro that this seldom occurred.

The fear of it, however, was ever present to the captains engaged in the trade, and to guard against it the slaves--always the men and sometimes the women as well--were shackled together in pairs.

Sometimes they were even fastened to the floor of the dark and stifling hold in which they were immured for months at a time.

If heavy weather compelled the closing of the hatches, or if disease set in, as it too often did, the morning would find the living shackled to the dead.