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Slavery & the Making of the Atlantic World

The curators stands in front of a Slavery and the Making of the Atlantic Word sign within the museum.

In the 1400s national boundaries did not exist as they do today. African and European peoples had traded for centuries across the Mediterranean, exchanging diverse goods, cultures, and knowledge. An Atlantic world was forming that connected people and ports along the Atlantic Ocean’s rim. By the 1600s an unanticipated shift took place. The primary commodity became enslaved African people. This is their story.