What was the Middle Passage?
Triangle Trade:The Middle Passage was the second leg of the Triangle Trade, which brought enslaved African to the Americas. It is marked red on the map above.
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Estimated Numbers:Most enslaved African brought on the Middle Passage were delivered to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in central and South America. Around 500,000 were sent to North America.
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Slave InspectionCaptains of slave ships inspected the enslaved people in order to select those who were most likely to survive the inhumane Middle Passage and bring a decent price in the American colonies.
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Interesting Points:
The slave trade was extremely competitive throughout the 1700s, as the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and British competed for dominance. It is said that the slave trade was the most profitable enterprise in the world during the eighteenth century. Many wealthy families of the time owed their fortunes to this lucrative business. Even today, some wealthy families can trace their inherited fortunes directly to slave trading and slave ownership.
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Although estimates vary, it is thought that well over one million enslaved people died during the Middle Passage and were thrown overboard (this is about 1 out of every 12 slaves). Scholars also debate over whether the amount of dead bodies thrown off the slave ships changed the migratory patterns of sharks. “When dead Slaves are thrown over-board,” the Dutch merchant William Bosman wrote in A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (1705), “I have sometimes, not without horrour, seen the dismal Rapaciousness of these Animals; four or five of them together shoot to the bottom under the Ship to tear the dead Corps to pieces, at each bite an Arm, a Leg, or the Head is snapt off; and before you can tell twenty have sometimes divided the Body amongst them so nicely that not the least Particle is left.”
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