![]() ![]() The transportation of slaves from Africa to America was known as the Middle Passage of the triangular trade.Ĭonditions on slave ships Slaves A painting c.1830 by the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas depicts a scene below deck of a slave ship headed to Brazil Rugendas had been an eyewitness to the scene As many as 20 million Africans were transported by ship. The most significant routes of the slave ships led from the north-western and western coasts of Africa to South America and the south-east coast of what is today the United States, and the Caribbean. They were confined to cargo holds, with each slave chained with little room to move. ![]() For example, the slave ship Henrietta Marie carried about 200 slaves on the long Middle Passage. ![]() Often, the ships carried hundreds of slaves, who were chained tightly to plank beds. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery, and scurvy led to a high mortality rate, on average 15% and up to a third of captives. To ensure profitability, the owners of the ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the last two decades of the 18th century, during and following the Kongo Civil War. In the early 1600s, more than a century after the arrival of Europeans to the Americas, demand for unpaid labor to work plantations made slave-trading a profitable business. Such ships were also known as " Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast in West Africa. Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. ![]()
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