1. WARM-UP What do you know about the Middle Passage?

2. They felt the sea-wind tying them into one nation of eyes
and shadows and groans, in the one pain that is inconsolable,
the loss of one’s shore.
They had wept, not for their wives only, their fading children,
but for strange, ordinary things. This one, who was
a hunter
wept for a sapling lance whose absent heft sang in his
palm’s hollow. One, a fisherman, for an ocher river encircling
his calves; one a weaver, for the straw
fisherpot he had meant to repair, wilting in water. They
cried for the little thing after the big thing. They cried for
a broken gourd.
—Derek Walcott, Omeros

3. The Age of European Exploration and Colonization
Western European countries expand during 15th century
Explore, conquer, and colonize
Trade
Eastern markets of India, China, and Japan
New World
Demand for laborers led to Atlantic slave trade

4. The Slave Trade in Africa
Ancient and universal phenomena
African kingdoms and Islamic nations conduct a trade commerce (business)
Not race based
Arab merchants and West African kings imported white slaves from Europe
West African slave trade dealt mainly in women and children who would serve as concubines and servants
European demand for agricultural laborers changed slave trading patterns

5. The Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade
In 15th century, slaves used as domestic servants on Iberian Peninsula (Spain & Portugal)
Other European countries had large work forces and little need for slaves
Purchased from African traders
Portugal and Spain dominated slave trade in 16th century
Dutch dominated 17th century
English dominated 18th century

6. Bronze Sculpture
West African artists recorded the appearance of Europeans who came to trade in gold, ivory, and human beings. This Benin bronze relief sculpture, dating to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, portrays two Portuguese men.

7. Growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Demand for labor in 16th century
Spanish gold and silver mines
Portuguese sugar plantations
Tobacco, rice and indigo

8. Estimated Annual Exports of Slaves from Western Africa to the Americas, 1500–1700

9. Estimated Slave Imports by Destination, 1451–1870
Does this surprise you?

11. The Atlantic and Islamic Slave Trades
Not until 1600 did the Atlantic slave trade reach the proportions of the Islamic slave trade. This map shows the principal sources of slaves, primary routes, and major destinations.

12. Growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)
Harsher in the Americas
Based on race
Most were males
Believed they were stronger laborers than females
West African women did farm work
Often withheld from trade
Agricultural workers
Chattel (Property)
Lost rights as human beings

13. Slave Colonies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
This map indicates regions in North America, the West Indies, and South America that had, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, significant populations of enslaved people of African descent.

14. Luanda
The Portuguese established the city of Luanda in This eighteenth-century print portrays the city when it was at its height as a center for the shipment of enslaved Africans to Brazil.

15. Growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade (cont.)
Triangle trade and profits
Slave, tobacco, and sugar profits funded Industrial Revolution

16. Atlantic Trade Among the Americas, Great Britain, and West Africa During the 17th and 18th centuries
Often referred to as a triangular trade, this map shows the complexity of early modern Atlantic commerce, of which the slave trade was a major part.

17. Capture Slavery: byproduct of war between kingdoms
European traders provided firearms
Did not instigate fighting

18. Late-Eighteenth-Century Drawing
In this late-eighteenth-century drawing, African slave traders conduct a group of bound captives from the interior of Africa toward European trading posts.

19. Capture (cont.) High mortality Slave Forts or “Factories” served as
Exhaustion, suicide, murder
Long, forced marches from interior to coast
Slave Forts or “Factories” served as
Headquarters for traders
Warehouses for trade goods
Pens or dungeons for captives

20. The Crossing Canary Islands to the Windward Islands
40 to 180 days to reach the Caribbean
Pirates attacked Spanish ships
Frightening experience
This journey was known as the “Middle Passage”

21. The Slavers Small and narrow ships Two slaves per ship-tonnage formula
Most captains were “tight packers”
Ignored formula in the name of profits

22. The Slavers (cont.) Crowded, unsanitary conditions
Slaves rode on planks 66” x 15”
only 20”– 25” of headroom
Males chained together in pairs
Kept apart from women and children
High mortality rates
One-third perish between capture and embarkation

23. British Slave Ship
Plan of the British Slave Ship Brookes, This plan, which may undercount the human cargo the Brookes carried, shows how tightly Africans were packed aboard slave ships.

24. A Slave’s Story Olaudah Equiano
Writes autobiography of his capture/voyage
Conditions
Suicides
Smells
Feedings

25. A Captain’s Story John Newton Evangelical Christian Slaver captain
Anglican priest
Repentance
Amazing Grace

26. Provisions for the Middle Passage
Slaves fed twice per day
Poor and insufficient diet
Vegetable pulps, stews, and fruits
Denied meat or fish
Ten people eating from one bucket
Unwashed hands spread disease
Malnutrition, weakness, depression, death

27. Sanitation, Disease, and Death
Astronomically high before 1750
Poor sanitation
No germ theory prior to early 20th century
Malaria, yellow fever, smallpox, dysentery
After 1750
Faster ships
Hygiene and diet better understood
Early forms of smallpox vaccinations

28. Resistance and Revolt at Sea
Uprisings were common
Most rebellions before sailing
Some preferred death to bondage
Justification for harsh treatment by slavers

29. Cruelty Middle passage horrors exaggerated?
Some historians claim disease was main killer, not overcrowding
Cultural context (acceptable ideas of treatment)
Exceptionally cruel
Slaves had half the space allowed indentured servants and convicts
Slavery suitable only for non-Christians
Brutal treatment by crew members

30. Africans on Slave Ships
This nineteenth-century drawing suggests how closely packed together were Africans on slave ships and how young many of them were.

31. African Women on Slave Ships
Less protection against unwanted sexual attention from European men
African women worth half the price of African men in the Caribbean markets
Separation from male slaves made them easier targets
Middle passage horrors depressed sex drives

32. Landing and Sale in the West Indies
Pre-sale
Bathed and exercised
Oiled bodies to conceal blemishes and bruises
Hemp plugs

33. Nineteenth-Century Engraving
This nineteenth-century engraving suggests the humiliation Africans endured as they were subjected to physical inspections before being sold.

34. British Board of Trade listing of slaves sold in Barbados between 1707 and 1708

35. Seasoning Modify behavior and attitude
Preparation for North American planters

36. Seasoning (cont.) Creoles Old Africans New Africans
slaves born in the Americas
worth three times price of unseasoned Africans
Old Africans
Lived in the Americas for some time
New Africans
Had just survived the middle passage
Creoles and Old Africans instruct New Africans

37. Slaves Preparing a Field
Slaves in this nineteenth-century painting are preparing a field for cultivation on the island of Antigua, a British possession in the West Indies. As had been the case in earlier centuries, the men and women work in gangs under the direction of a white overseer who carries a whip.

38. End of the Journey Survival Adapted to new foods
One-third died
Men died at a greater rate than women
Adapted to new foods
Learned a new language
Creole dialect well enough to obey commands
Psychological - no longer suicidal
Africans retained culture despite the hardships and cruel treatment
Created bonds with shipmates that replaced blood kinship

39. Scenes on a Cotton Plantation

40. Slaves Arriving in the West Indies
This print, published in 1793, portrays a group of Africans who arrived during the 1720s in Suriname, in northern South America. Although the artist creates a festive scene, a slave trader is driving them with a stick. This group of Africans newly arrived in the West Indies in the 1700s to be sold as slaves would be subjected to the seasoning process by their new masters.

41. The Ending of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Cruelties help end Atlantic slave trade
English abolitionists
Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and Granville Sharp
Moral crusade and economy less dependent on slave trade
Great Britain bans Atlantic slave trade in 1807
Patrols African coast to enforce
United States Congress outlaws slave trade in 1808
Guinea and western central African kingdoms oppose banning slave trade

42. East African slaves aboard the Daphne, a British Royal Navy vessel

43. Rescued slaves crowd the deck of the HMS Daphne.

44. Conclusion
More than eleven million Africans brought to the Americas during three centuries of trade
Millions more died
Most arrived between 1701 and 1810
Only 500,000 reached the British colonies of North America

45. Underwater sculpture, in Grenada, in honor of our African Ancestors who were thrown overboard the slave ships during the Middle Passage of the African Holocaust. --Artist, Jason DeCaires Taylor

46. A replica of the slaves awaiting sale at the Slave Market
A replica of the slaves awaiting sale at the Slave Market. Below the Anglican Church in Zanzibar near the Slave Market.