Slave Ships

The Middle Passage

The Middle Passage was the phase of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were taken by ship to the New World, during the Atlantic slave trade. Ships sailed from Europe towards Africa with manufactured goods, which were traded for Africans, who were enslaved by restraints and transported across the Atlantic as slaves; the slaves were then auctioned or traded for raw materials, which would be shipped back to Europe to complete the voyage. A single voyage on the Middle Passage was a large financial undertaking, and they were generally organized by companies or groups of investors.

Slave Trade Map

In 1800 the population of the United States included 893,602 slaves, of which only 36,505 were in the northern states. Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey provided for the emancipation of their slaves before 1804, most of them by gradual measures.

Slave Trade Compromise

An agreement during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 protecting the interests of slave owners by forbidding Congress the ability to tax the export of goods from any State, and, for 20 years, the power to continue on with the slave trade.

The Slave Trade Compromise stated that Congress couldn't ban the slave trade until 1808. It was done so that the Constitution would be accepted by the slave states. If the Constitutional Convention had banned the slave trade, the southern states would probably not have consented to the Constitution.

African Slave Trade

Although slavery has been in effect for almost the majority of recorded history, the staggering numbers involved in the African slave trade has left an irreparable scar which has thus far failed to heal.

• Slavery in Africa

Whether slavery existed in African society before the invasion of Europeans is highly debated among Africans and Europeans. What is known is that Africans have endured several forms of slavery for centuries, including chattel slavery not only under the Europeans through the trans-Atlantic slave trade but also by Muslims with the trans-Saharan slave trade as well.