Trade Routes Learning Journey
Follow the Learning Journey steps and come aboard ships sailing between England, Africa, the Caribbean and America - the infamous triangular trade routes that crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean over 200 years ago.
Click on the steps below to explore.
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Trade Routes Learning Journey Step 2 The Middle Passage - Africa to the Caribbean and America
As the brilliant African sun beats down the new cargo is loaded - between 200 - 450 African people, naked and in chains are crammed into the cargo hold ready for the second leg of the journey, the long sea crossing known as the Middle Passage. Between 1450 and 1850 at least 10 million African people were sold into slavery and taken from Africa to North America, South America and the West Indies. Conditions on-board the slave ships are so appalling that thousands of people die on the 5 - 12 week journey. Their bodies are thrown overboard to be eaten by schools of sharks which follow the slavers.John Newton in his 'Journal of a Slave Trader' (1788) describes conditions in the ships hold: "....The poor creatures, thus cramped for want of room, are likewise in irons, for the most part both hands and feet, and two together, which makes it difficult for them to move, to rise or lie down without hurting themselves" A young African boy, Olaudah Equiano, who was sold into slavery in Nigeria in 1789, describes the brutality and inhumanity he experienced onboard a slave ship. "....Soon after this, the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly: and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it; yet, nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water..) News Just In! President George W. Bush began an historic visit to Africa yesterday with a visit to a once notorious slave house on Senegal's Goree island, one of the major transhipment points in the notorious West African trade. Here between 1700 and 1846 several million African people were shipped across the notorious Middle Passage to the Americas and Caribbean. Speaking at the " Door of No Return" - an opening onto the Atlantic ocean where where slaves passed through to board ships, Mr. Bush said: "... A this place , liberty and life were stolen and sold, human beings were delivered and sorted and weighed and branded with the marks of commercial enterprise, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return. One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history .... Christian men and women became blinded to the clearesr commands of their faith and addedd hypocracy to injustice. A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions" (Source: The Washington Times 8th July 2003) |
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