Examining the Middle Passage

The Slave Trade

Portuguese traders began buying enslaved Africans in the 1400s. Other European nations soon joined in this profitable commerce. African rulers strictly controlled the trade. Europeans were permitted only to rent land for trading forts at certain sites along the coast. The Africans themselves captured prisoners in the interior areas. The African slavers drove their captives to the coastal forts, where they delivered them to the European slavers in exchange for rum, trade goods, and guns and ammunition. The slave trade badly disrupted life in West Africa, creating constant chaos and violence.

Many captured Africans did not survive their forced relocation. Some died during the initial raid. Others fell during the trek to the coast. Worst of all was the voyage across the Atlantic. You will learn more about this voyage next.

The Middle Passage

You will be learning more about the journey that a slave would take from Africa to the Americas through first-hand accounts and images. This journey, called the Middle Passage, was the largest movement of people in history. For enslaved Africans it was a journey of despair and danger. Torn from their homes, chained slaves endured overcrowding, brutality, filth and stench, and life-threatening disease.

An underwater display of statues honoring those who died during the Middle Passage

Remember: The first-hand accounts you are about to read were written in the past and some use language which is considered inappropriate by today's standards.

Fact #1: Between 10 and 15 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic Ocean from 1500-1900.

Account #1: By Olaudah Euqiana, an Ibo captured as a child: The first thing that I saw when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship…waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment that soon became terror. I was immediately handled and tossed up by some of the crew to see if I was healthy. I began to believe that I had got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me… I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a smell in my nostrils that I have never experienced in my life. With the horrible stench and with my crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me. But soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me food; and on my refusing to eat, one of them held me…and laid me across a post and tied my feet, while the other flogged [whipped] me severely. Later amongst the poor chained men, I found some of my own people…I asked them what was to be done with us. They told me that we were to be carried to these white people’s country to work for them. I still feared that I should be put to death. The white people looked and acted in so savage a manner. I had never seen such instances of brutal cruelty, and this is not only shown towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves…

Image shows the plan for the storage of slaves on the under decks of a ship. This is a top-down view of the ship.

Fact #2: The voyage on a ship in the Middle Passage lasted between 6 to 8 weeks

Account #2: A ship's doctor's account, published in 1788: The men, on being brought aboard the ship, are immediately fastened together, two by two, by handcuffs on their wrists and by irons riveted on their legs. They are then sent down between the decks. They are frequently stowed so close as to allow no other position than lying on their sides. The height between decks will not allow them to stand. The tubs [for "bathroom" purposes] are much too small for the purpose intended and are usually only emptied once every day. As the necessities of nature are not to be resisted, slaves who can't reach the tubs ease themselves where they lie.

Exercise being considered necessary for the preservation of their health, they are sometimes forced to dance when the weather will permit their coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly or do not move with agility, they are whipped.

The slaves' rooms very soon become intolerably hot with lack of fresh air. The floor of their rooms was so covered with blood and mucus that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting.

This image shows the main source of slaves & the primary routes of the Middle Passage.

Enslaved people are branded between the shoulders before being loaded aboard the ship.

Fact #3: Enslaved Africans were from eight general areas in Africa including West Central Africa, Southeastern Africa, Bight of Biafra, Bight of Benin, Gold Coast, Windward Coast, Upper Guinea, and Senegambia.

Account #3: Slave trader, voyage of 1808: The day before we were to start, the branding was done and a good deal of flogging had to be done also to keep the frightened slaves quiet. Shakoe's lash and the heavy whips of his assistant Negroes were not idle for a moment. The slaves were fetched up one at a time, made to lie down on their faces where they are held by a big Negro while another kept the branding irons hot in a fire close by and a third applied them between the shoulders of the shrieking wretches.

Fact #4: It is hard to know for sure how many enslaved Africans died on the Middle Passage, but some experts estimate approximately two million; which is about 15 percent.

Slaves who were disobedient were sometimes thrown overboard. If supplies ran low, slaves were also thrown overboard to save on food and water.

Account #4: Thomas Phillip, captain of the ship Hannibal, 1693 voyage: The slaves are so against leaving their own country that they have often leaped out of the canoes, boats, and ships, into the sea and kept under water until they drowned. We had about 12 slaves who willfully drown themselves, and others starved themselves to death; for it is their belief that when they die they return home to their own country and friends again.

When our slaves are aboard, we shackle the men two by two while we are still in port and in sight of their own country. When we come out to sea, we let them all out of their irons, they never then attempting to rebel, considering that should they kill us, they could not steer the ship.

Those of us who transport slaves have a horrible job. We endure twice the misery, and yet by the slaves' dying, our voyages are ruined. We pine and fret ourselves to death, to think that we should undergo so much misery and take so much pains to so little profit.

Enslaved people who were disobedient were sometimes thrown overboard. If supplies ran low, people who were enslaved were also thrown overboard to save on food and water.

Source #5: Modern poem written about the Middle Passage - Answer questions on pg. 22

Report abuse