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Middle Passage
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Eighteenth-century diagram showing cross-sections and deck plans of a slave ship, with densely packed figures representing enslaved people arranged in rows. Map of the Atlantic Ocean showing North America, Europe, and Africa, illustrating the Triangular Trade network among the 13 Colonies, Caribbean, and Africa. Includes explanatory text.
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Eighteenth-century diagram showing cross-sections and deck plans of a slave ship, with densely packed figures representing enslaved people arranged in rows.
Slave ship Plans of a ship for transporting enslaved people, engraving, 1789.

Middle Passage

slave trade
Also known as: Atlantic Passage
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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

Middle Passage, the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. It was one leg of the triangular trade route that took goods (such as knives, guns, ammunition, cotton cloth, tools, and brass dishes) from Europe to Africa, Africans to work as slaves in the Americas and West Indies, and items, mostly raw materials, produced on the plantations (sugar, rice, tobacco, indigo, rum, and cotton) back to Europe. From about...

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