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THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

Africans endured three parts in their journey to becoming slaves in the Americas. First, they were rounded up by African slavers and marched to ports on the coastline, where they were imprisoned in pens called barracoons. European slave traders purchased the slaves from the barracoons , and took them across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. This trip aboard ship was called the Middle Passage, and usually lasted between six and eight weeks. Once they arrived, slaves were sold at markets in American ports and sent to their new homes. On board the slave ships for the Atlantic crossing, male slaves were chained below decks and tightly packed together, while women and children were usually left unchained. Of the 12 million Africans transported to America, it is estimated that two million died at sea due to the terrible conditions. An African named Olaudah Equiano, who later escaped slavery, described his experience on the Middle Passage: The closeness[s] of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on the sicknes[s] amongst the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the [toilet] tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.

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Fighting Back Against Slavery