The Middle Passage Essay

African slaves were shipped to the West Indies and America as part of the Triangular Trade. Many slaves died on the voyage due to the ghastly conditions that accompanied the Middle Passage and others committed suicide. Portugal held a near monopoly on the export of African slaves for a period of about 200 years from the early 14-1600s. The peak years of the slave trade were during the 16th and 17th century, but Africans were forced across the Atlantic for an astonishing timeframe of around 400 years.

Imagine waking up in a near pitch black room, overwhelmed by the smell of death and despair, chained to a board squished in with hundreds of others. As strange as it might seem, at one point that was a reality for some and the suffering they would have to endure hadn’t even begun to begin. These people were victims of the Atlantic Slave trade and were on their way to the Americas to be bought and sold and forced to work. Exploited and abused these people would go on to become a huge part of what made the United States and our history.

The “Triangular Trade” was the trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. They traded crops, goods, and slaves. The transportation of slaves from Africa to the New World is what has been labeled as the “Middle Passage.” Many accounts have been documented about this transportation, in the eyes of historians, crew members of the actual ships, and even slaves who went through this voyage themselves. All of them have a different way of describing how the Middle Passage was truly experienced. However, when looking at them in a general sense, a very clear conclusion can be made: slaves were kept in a horrific environment, which often affected the crew on board, but the only reason the slaves were kept alive was because the white crews saw them as monetary beings rather than human beings.

Both colored and whites have experienced the Middle Passage in completely different ways. Document B, written by a slave ship captain, describe the hardships that he and his crew had to face. He has zero sympathy for any of the colored people on the ship, saying “There happened such a sickening and mortality among my poor men and Negroes.” Thomas Phillip was quite upset of how much money he way losing due to the death rate of the slaves. He also explains that after all of his hard work to care and feed them, he has to endure twice the misery and pain that the slaves do. I believe he experienced the Middle Passage with elevated narcissism and dislike of colored

The Middle Passage, the second, or middle, leg in the triangular trading routes linking America, Africa, and Europe, was the name for the voyage of the slaves across the Atlantic Ocean. America was the popular destination for people selling slaves because they were sold for up to thirty times the price of the slaves sold in Africa. The higher amount of money made by selling the slaves in America caused a number of crammed vessels full of African-American men, women, and children to head through the Ocean towards America. The conditions on the ships were horrible for the slaves. The slaves were chained to the decks by their necks and legs, and the enslaved people were so packed that they could not even turn around. Death of many of the slaves

The Atlantic slave trade which was inevitably began by the Portuguese, but later in time taken over by the English, was the sale and exploitation of African slaves by Europeans that occurred in and throughout the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were transported from West Africa and Central Africa to the New World. Although slavery and slave trading already existed it became well known and practiced in all cultures. During this time while Europeans obtained most slaves through coastal trade with African states, some slaves

Trade during colonial America was done between Europe, Africa, and the New World. They traded food, natural resources, animals, and slaves. History proves to show that trade highly increases economies and through the Triangular Trade route the economy of the colonies shot up. It was really easy for colonists to buy slaves from Africa and have them shipped across the Middle Passage just as easy as it was to be over an indentured servant. As stated above, colonists preferred slaves over indentured servants, so they chose African slaves. This allowed for a rapid growth in the number of slaves within the British North American colonies that increased trade and economic power for the colonies.

The Middle Passage was a triangular route that was frequently used by many European nations who engaged in the Atlantic slave trade of millions of Africans. One such African slave was a man by the name of Olaudah Equiano, who 's autobiography spoke of the mortality rate on slave ships, what he and his fellow slaves thought of their European captors, and what their captors thought of them.

: The middle passage was a part of the Triangle Trade
Africans was transported to the Americas, where they were traded for sugar and tobacco. Middle segment of the forced journey that slaves made from Africa to America throughout the 1600's; it consisted of the dangerous trip across the Atlantic Ocean; many slaves perished on this segment of the journey.

Though the Natives were treated badly, they were soon saved by Bartolome de Las Casas, who persuaded the Spanish king to stop enslaving the Native Americans, instead use Africans as their slaves. This protest from Las Casas forever changed the course of history. After Las Casas’ protest was accepted, enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas through the Middle Passage, which was a sea route from western Africa to the eastern part of America. Space in the ship was very compact and hot. Also, due to the number on the ship, there was little room to move, causing many people to almost suffocate to death. (Doc 5). The Europeans had to pack as many Africans they could, knowing that some Africans would perish on the journey, to reach African slave quota. The Middle Passage itself killed over 20% of the captive African slaves due to the lack of space, hygiene, and nutrition. Not only did the Middle Passage bring enslaved Africans to the Americans it also helped spread Africans across the world This process today is now called

In the United States, slavery had an overwhelming impact on their political, social, and economical. Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, the first African slaves were brought into the United States. Reasons were because the tobacco, sugar, rice, and coffee fields were expanding which led to increasing the demand for labor. The Atlantic slave trade was an inhuman systematic importation of slaves between the African traders, American planters, and the European merchants bargaining over human lives which led to the Middle Passage. 1675-1775, the slaves were the backbone of monoculture labor and so it was put into law to keep the Africans as slaves. “So prevalent was this Italian-operated slave trade that the word “slave” was derived from the word “Slav,” name for people from Slavic countries” (Williams 3). In both seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new nation.

The introduction of international trade throughout the continent provided the Americas with goods once thought unattainable. Different trade routes began to stem from the original triangle route. All of these routes had one goal; to transport the goods in high demand in the most time and cost efficient way. The different branches were trading systems between the America’s, Europe, and Africa. Through these routes, captains traded goods and services such as slaves, sugar, tobacco, cotton, textiles, and many other manufactured goods. One history changing route was the Middle Passage. The course of this route was used to transport kidnapped Africans so they could be enslaved in the Americas. Within a three hundred year period, it is

In the 1500s to 1900s, Africans were taken from Africa and brought across the Atlantic Ocean where they were traded and sold for labor in the New World, which included the Caribbean Islands, and North and South America. Around the 1600s, the Europeans captured and bought slaves, which began the Atlantic Slave trade and the forced migration of about 24 million people from Africa.

The Middle Passage received its name because it is in the middle of the Triangular Trade. The legs of the triangular trade stretch from Europe to Africa, Africa to the Western Hemisphere, then back to Europe again. This was a great route for Europeans to get ships around the world quickly and efficiently. This is how the slave trade began (Meltzer 9). Most everyone in the world today has a descendant of slavery. Enslavement is a human being that is possessed by someone else, who does labor for free unwillingly. An owner could range from a king, queen, noble, tribe, government, clergy, or business owner. Slaves were considered similar to horses in a way because they could be bought, sold, hired out, exchanged, given as a gift, or inherited (1-9).

Africans were less defenseless to numerous European ailments than Native American slaves. Starting in 861, a great part of the Caliphate was tossed into Civil War, and the Zanj accepted the open door to revolt between 869-883-1.5-2.5 million executed. After the Portuguese arrived, slaves were frequently exchanged for European products specifically firearms. The Portuguese utilized slaves on their Sugar Plantations in Sao Tome and Madeira. The Portuguese first conveyed African slaves to the New World as right on time as 1500 to take a shot at sugar estates, and they overwhelmed the early exchange. They were immediately supplanted by the Dutch in 1600 who initially foreign made slaves routinely into North America. They were supplanted by the English in the 1700s.The slave exchange produced an ever more prominent interest for slaves prompting to more wars between African tribes to keep up the request; journey from Africa to the New World. Considered the middle section of the triangular trade, also known as The Middle Passage. Slaves were payload and regarded all things considered. Frequently packed into boats and stacked on top of each other. On a few boats, they were either laid level and couldn 't sit up. Anchored together with a team of around thirty people. Ailing health, congestion, and terrible sanitation prompted to many slaves passing on before they ever arrived. Dead bodies were