Skip to Content

Chapter 03

The Middle Passage: A Full Complement of Negroes

The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast, was . . . a slave ship . . . waiting for its cargo.

Olaudah Equiano, 1789

Overview of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1501 - 1867

Ship Full of Sorrow

Insurrection on board a slave ship

Insurrection on board a slave ship

There is no Spaniard who dares to stick his head in the hatch without becoming ill . . . . So great is the stench, the crowding and the misery of the place . . . . Most arrive turned into skeletons.

Alonzo de Sandoval, 1627

The São José

A View of the Cape of Good Hope, Taken on the Spot, from on Board the Resolution, Capt Cooke

A View of the Cape of Good Hope, Taken on the Spot, from on Board the Resolution, Capt Cooke

Left Lisbon on 27 April 1794, destined for Mozambique to fetch a cargo of slaves and then set sail for Marronhas in Brazil.

Sailor’s Account of the São José, 1794

Artifacts from the São José Slave Ship, 1794

Their singing . . . [was] always in tears, in so much that one captain . . . threatened one of the women with a flogging, because the mournfulness of her song was too painful for his feelings.

William Corbett, 1806

Holding on to Humanity

Embarked are Blacks 60 males as many large men as children 40 women with 4 or 5 small infants at the breast.

Monsieur La Lande Boulon Menard, 1723

Middle Passage Shackles

Adult and Child Shackles

Adult and Child Shackles

With . . . apparent eagerness a black woman seized some dirt from off an African yam, and put it into her mouth, seeming to rejoice at the opportunity of possessing some of her native earth.

Alexander Falconbridge, 1788