An historic example of three way trade in the North Atlantic; the Middle Passage is from Africa to the "New World"

Journey

The Middle Passage took from one to six months depending on weather conditions.

African kings, warlords and private kidnappers sold 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 sale to the European or American slave traders in the barracoons. Typical slave ships contained several hundred slaves with about thirty crew members. 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 beans, corn, yams, rice, and palm oil. Slaves were fed one meal a day with water, but if food was scarce, slaveholders would get priority over the slaves. 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 the 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 by jumping overboard 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.^[4]

See also

• Abolitionism
• Atlantic slave trade
• European colonization of the Americas
• History of Africa
• Maafa
• Slave ship
• Triangular trade

References

• Faragher, John Mack. Out of many. Pearson Prentice Hall. 2006: New Jersey.

Notes

fr:Passage du milieu nl:Middenpassage no:Mellompassasjen