Middle Passage
Transatlantic slave route
The Middle Passage was the transatlantic voyage that brought enslaved Africans to the Americas from the 16th through 19th centuries—the middle leg of the triangular trade route connecting Europe, Africa, and the New World.
The term evokes the brutal conditions aboard slave ships: people chained below deck, disease, death, and disposal of bodies at sea.
Millions died during the Middle Passage.
Commerce in human beings
- auction blockPodium for public sales
- chattel slaveryPersons owned as movable property
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- enslavementForced human ownership
shackles · manacles · chains · captives · human cargo · coffin ships · slave ships · abolitionist
Sea voyage between continents
- transatlanticSpanning the ocean between continents
- sea routeNavigable ocean pathway
- triangular tradeThree-legged Atlantic exchange system
- slave shipsVessels transporting enslaved people
overcrowding · below decks · death toll · sharks · arrival · disembarkation · West Indies · Caribbean
State of eventual death
- diseaseDisorder impairing normal function
- dysenteryBloody intestinal infection
- scurvyVitamin C deficiency disease
- starvationExtreme nutritional deprivation
dehydration · suffocation · filth · chains · trauma · anguish · despair · brutality
Thing preserving remembrance
- remembranceAct of holding something in mind
- UNESCOCultural arm of UN
- heritageInherited cultural legacy
- ancestryFamily line of descent
museum · monument · descendants · reparations · historical memory · education · reconciliation · African American history
slave trade
Commerce in human beings
- auction blockPodium for public sales
- chattel slaveryPersons owned as movable property
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
enslavement · shackles · manacles · chains · captives · human cargo · coffin ships · slave ships · abolitionist · emancipation
Atlantic crossing
Sea voyage between continents
- transatlanticSpanning the ocean between continents
- sea routeNavigable ocean pathway
- triangular tradeThree-legged Atlantic exchange system
slave ships · overcrowding · below decks · death toll · sharks · arrival · disembarkation · West Indies · Caribbean · Americas
mortality
State of eventual death
- diseaseDisorder impairing normal function
- dysenteryBloody intestinal infection
- scurvyVitamin C deficiency disease
starvation · dehydration · suffocation · filth · chains · trauma · anguish · despair · brutality · dehumanization
memorial
Thing preserving remembrance
- remembranceAct of holding something in mind
- UNESCOCultural arm of UN
- heritageInherited cultural legacy
ancestry · museum · monument · descendants · reparations · historical memory · education · reconciliation · African American history · cultural trauma
- African historyNubia, Dahomey, Oyo Empire, Scramble for Africa, scramble for Africa
- slaverychattel slavery, enslaved, slave, enslavement, slave traders
- trade historycommerce, merchant, trade routes, traders, colonial economy
- Atlantic HistoryAtlantic crossing, transatlantic trade, transatlantic crossing, Columbus, triangle trade
- displacementdislocation, dislodging, relocation, displacing, uprooting
- oppressionoppression, tyranny, racism, repression, secret police
Middle PassageEllis Island
Historic immigrant processing center
Great Migration · economic migration · settler colonialism · asylum seeking · refugee resettlement
Middle Passageemancipation
Release from legal bondage
Underground Railroad · abolition · liberation · Juneteenth · Emancipation Proclamation