Middle Passage

The Middle Passage was the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of Africans sold for enslavement were forcibly transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods (first side of the triangle), which were then traded for captive Africans. Slave ships transported the African captives across the Atlantic (second side of the triangle). The proceeds from selling these enslaved people were then used to buy products such as furs and hides, tobacco, sugar, rum, and raw materials, which would be transported back to Europe (third side of the triangle, completing it). The Atlantic slave trade developed through European slave-raiding, commerce, and expanding networks connecting European traders with African societies. European actors directly seized Africans at the beginning of the Atlantic trade: in 1441, Portuguese raiders captured people from coastal communities in Senegambia and transported them across the Atlantic. Portuguese forceful capture was later resumed in west-central Africa following the establishment of Portuguese Angola. The expansion of European-controlled plantation economies in the Americas created a rapidly increasing demand for enslaved African labor, transforming the scale and character of the Atlantic trade. European traders subsequently obtained large numbers of captives through relationships with African political and commercial authorities, while European demand contributed to warfare, raiding, and other forms of coercion in parts of Africa. The processes by which people were enslaved and transported to Atlantic ports varied by region and period. African rulers and communities also resisted the seizure and export of people, including through laws and treaties prohibiting the slave trade and the removal of people for enslavement. The Final Passage was the journey from the port of disembarkation in the Americas to the plantation or other destination for enslavement into forced labor. The Middle Passage across...