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:''This is about the slave trade route. For the novel, see Middle Passage (novel). For the album, see The Middle Passage.
The 'Middle Passage' refers to the forced transportation of African people from Africa to the New World as part of the Atlantic slave trade.^[1] It was called the Middle Passage because the slave trade was a portion of the triangular trade. Ships left Europe for African markets, where their goods were sold or traded for prisoners and kidnapped victims on the African coast. Then they sailed to the Americas and Caribbean, where the Africans were sold or traded for goods for European markets, which were then returned to Europe. The European powers Spain, Portugal, France, England, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Brandenburg, as well as traders from Brazil and North America, all took part in this trade.

Contents

The journey

See also

References

The journey

The Middle Passage took anywhere from one to five months depending on weather conditions with wind conditions varying by time of year.
African kings, warlords and private kidnappers sold their captives to Europeans who held several coastal forts. The captives were usually force-marched to these ports along the western coast of Africa, where they were held for purchase to the European or American slave traders. People were usually packed into the ships transporting at least 400 slaves that were chained in the cargo hold, guarded by approximately 35 crew. Many ships contained up to 700 slaves aboard one slave ship. The male captives were normally chained together in pairs to save space; right leg to the next man's left leg — while the women and children may have had somewhat more room. The captives were fed very small portions of beans, corn, yams, rice, and palm oil, normally just enough to sustain them. Slaves were fed one meal a day with water, but if food was scarce, slaveholders would get priority over meals. Sometimes captives were allowed to move around during the day, but many ships kept the shackles on throughout the arduous journey.
Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million Africans arrived in the new world.^[2][3] Disease and starvation due to the length of the passage were the main contributors to the death toll with amoebic dysentery and scurvy causing the majority of deaths. Additionally, outbreaks of smallpox, syphilis, malaria, measles, and other diseases spread rapidly in the close-quarter compartments. The number of dead increased with the length of voyage, since the incidence of dysentery and of scurvy increased with longer stints at sea as the quality and amount of food and water diminished with every passing day. In addition to physical sickness, many slaves became too depressed to eat or function efficiently because of the loss of freedom, family, security, and their own humanity. This often led to worse treatment like force-feeding or lashings. Some even committed suicide before they arrived in the New World.
For two hundred years, 1440-1640, Portugal had a quasi-monopoly on the export of slaves from Africa. During the eighteenth century however, when the slave trade accounted for the transport of about 6 million Africans, Britain was responsible for almost 2.5 million of them.

See also

★ Atlantic slave trade

★ European colonization of the Americas

★ History of Africa

★ Maafa

★ Slave ship

★ Triangular trade

References

1. The Middle Passage: Slaves at Sea
2. Eltis, David and Richardson, David. The Numbers Game. In: Northrup, David: The Atlantic Slave Trade, 2nd edition, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002.
3. p. 95.
Basil Davidson. The African Slave Trade.