Slide 1
The Atlantic crossing was forced
The transatlantic slave trade forcibly transported millions of Africans. Captivity and sale connected places of seizure and embarkation with destinations across the Atlantic.
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Embarkation does not identify a person’s full origin. Many captives had already endured movement before reaching a coastal port. A shipping record therefore captures only one stage of a longer history of separation, violence and displacement.
Slide 2
Destinations formed a changing network
Enslaved Africans were carried to many parts of the Americas, especially Brazil and the Caribbean. The pattern changed over the centuries of the trade.
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A single triangular diagram cannot represent every voyage. Ships followed different routes, and people could be moved again after their first arrival. Studying the network requires attention to dates and destinations rather than treating one route as universal.
Slide 3
The Middle Passage caused immense loss
Conditions aboard slave ships were brutal and deadly. Estimates distinguish people forced aboard in Africa from those who survived to disembark across the Atlantic.
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Those two totals answer different questions. Subtracting one from the other concerns deaths during the crossing, not all deaths caused by capture, confinement and enslavement. The boundary of a calculation must be stated before its result is interpreted.
Slide 4
Records preserve an unequal viewpoint
Many surviving records were created by traders, ship operators and officials. They can document the trade while saying little about the names and experiences of captive people.
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A commercial list may be precise about quantities and silent about family relationships. Historians can use it without adopting its dehumanizing viewpoint. Combining documentary and archaeological evidence helps reveal both what was recorded and what the system obscured.
Slide 5
Enslaved people resisted
Resistance accompanied enslavement, from escape and daily acts of refusal to organized rebellion. People subjected to the trade were historical actors as well as victims.
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Evidence of resistance can appear in hostile records, such as advertisements seeking people who escaped. Reading against the author’s purpose can recover initiative that the document sought to suppress. Such evidence also cautions against mistaking limited records for passive acceptance.
Sources
- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Methodology
SlaveVoyages
- Slavery and the British transatlantic slave trade
The National Archives
- Slave Wrecks Project
National Museum of African American History and Culture