What is the Middle Passage essay?

What is the Middle Passage essay?

The Middle Passage (or Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) was a voyage that took slaves from Africa to the Americas via tightly packed ships. The trade started around the early 1500s, and by 1654 about 8,000-10,000 slaves were being imported from Africa to the Americas every year.

What is the Middle Passage and why was it important?

The Middle Passage was the second leg of the triangular trade of enslaved people that went from Europe to Africa, Africa to the Americas, and then back to Europe. Millions of Africans were packed tightly onto ships bound for the Americas. Roughly 15% of enslaved people didn’t survive the Middle Passage.

What was the Middle Passage summary?

Set in 1830, it presents a personal and historical perspective of the illegal slave trade in the United States, telling the story of Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave who sneaks aboard a slave ship bound for Africa in order to escape a forced marriage.

What were the conditions during the Middle Passage?

Seasickness was common and the heat was oppressive. The lack of sanitation and suffocating conditions meant there was a constant threat of disease. Epidemics of fever, dysentery (the ‘flux’) and smallpox were frequent. Captives endured these conditions for about two months, sometimes longer.

How long did the Middle Passage take?

roughly 80 days
The Middle Passage itself lasted roughly 80 days on ships ranging from small schooners to massive, purpose-built “slave ships.” Ship crews packed humans together on or below decks without space to sit up or move around. Without ventilation or sufficient water, about 15% grew sick and died.

What was life like on the Middle Passage?

The air in the hold was foul and putrid. Seasickness was common and the heat was oppressive. The lack of sanitation and suffocating conditions meant there was a constant threat of disease. Epidemics of fever, dysentery (the ‘flux’) and smallpox were frequent.