Atlantic slave trade
Middle Passage enterprise
The Atlantic slave trade was the forced transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, spanning roughly from the 16th to the 19th century.
European and American ships carried millions of captives under brutal conditions to work plantations in the Caribbean, Brazil, and North America.
The term encompasses both the commercial system and the historical atrocity: The Atlantic slave trade reshaped three continents.
Extending dominion over others
- plantationsLarge-scale farming operations
- mercantilismTrade policy favoring exports
- conquestDefeating and seizing control
- subjugationForcing into submission
European empires · New World · territories · domination · sugar cane · tobacco · cotton · West Indies
Transatlantic slave trade crossing
- abolitionismMovement to end oppression
- plantationsLarge-scale farming operations
- AmistadHistoric maritime captive revolt
- Underground RailroadCovert abolitionist escape network
William Wilberforce · Frederick Douglass · Harriet Tubman · Emancipation Proclamation · 13th Amendment · African kingdoms · European empires · Quakers
Transatlantic slave trade crossing
- seafaringTraveling by ocean vessel
- maritimeOf the sea
- shacklesMetal bonds for prisoners
- captivesPeople held by force
mortality · overcrowding · disease · starvation · cargo holds · ports · embarkation · disembarkation
Sustained experience of distress
- atrocityUnforgivable mass cruelty
- brutalitySavage, merciless behavior
- dehumanizationDenying personhood to others
- oppressionUnjust exercise of power
cruelty · anguish · grief · family separation · shackles · whipping · branding · auction block
U.S. ethnic identity category
- Afro-CaribbeanOf African-descended islanders
- CreoleFused language, stabilized
- GullahSea Islands creole language
- MaroonBrownish-red hue
oral traditions · spirituals · jazz · blues · gospel · reggae · samba · calypso
imperialism
Extending dominion over others
- plantationsLarge-scale farming operations
- mercantilismTrade policy favoring exports
- conquestDefeating and seizing control
subjugation · European empires · New World · territories · domination · sugar cane · tobacco · cotton · West Indies · Caribbean
Middle Passage
Transatlantic slave trade crossing
- abolitionismMovement to end oppression
- plantationsLarge-scale farming operations
- AmistadHistoric maritime captive revolt
Underground Railroad · William Wilberforce · Frederick Douglass · Harriet Tubman · Emancipation Proclamation · 13th Amendment · African kingdoms · European empires · Quakers · indentured servitude
Middle Passage
Transatlantic slave trade crossing
captives · mortality · overcrowding · disease · starvation · cargo holds · ports · embarkation · disembarkation · West Africa
suffering
Sustained experience of distress
- atrocityUnforgivable mass cruelty
- brutalitySavage, merciless behavior
- dehumanizationDenying personhood to others
oppression · cruelty · anguish · grief · family separation · shackles · whipping · branding · auction block · generational trauma
African-American
U.S. ethnic identity category
- Afro-CaribbeanOf African-descended islanders
- CreoleFused language, stabilized
- GullahSea Islands creole language
Maroon · oral traditions · spirituals · jazz · blues · gospel · reggae · samba · calypso · vodou
- Colonial AmericaGeorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Declaration of Independence
- African historyNubia, Dahomey, Oyo Empire, Scramble for Africa, scramble for Africa
- colonial historycolonization, colonies, pilgrims, Jamestown, Plymouth
- slaverybondage, chattel, thrall, Middle Passage, slaveholders
- Atlantic tradeshipping routes, sea lanes, merchant ships, colonial ports, port cities
- displacementdislocation, dislodging, relocation, displacing, uprooting
Atlantic slave tradeeconomic migration
Moving for financial opportunity
refugee resettlement · chain migration · settler colonialism · asylum seeking · freedom of movement
Atlantic slave tradeemancipation
Release from legal bondage
manumission · Haitian Revolution · abolition · abolitionism · abolitionist movement
trade, slave, slavery, enslave, slavish, enslaved, Atlantic, enslavement, slaver