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'Inventory of Negroes, Cattle, Horses, etc on the estate of Sir James Lowther Bart in Barbados taken this 31st day of December 1766'
The Arrival of Europeans in Africa - 1795
The Portuguese, under the sponsorship of Prince Henry, had landed in West Africa 350 years earlier.
This engraving, entitled An African man being inspected for sale into slavery while a white man talks with African slave traders, appeared in the detailed account of a former slave ship captain and was published in 1854.
Middle Passage – passage across the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa to the Americas the was the route of the African American slave trade
The slave ship Brookes with 482 people packed onto the decks. The drawing of the slave ship Brookes was distributed by the Abolitionist Society in England as part of their campaign against the slave trade, and dates from 1789.
Interior of a Slave Ship, a woodcut illustration from the publication, A History of the Amistad Captives, reveals how hundreds of slaves could be held within a slave ship. Tightly packed and confined in an area with just barely enough room to sit up, slaves were known to die from a lack of breathable air.
• Africans were crowded and chained cruelly aboard slave ships.
Frequently, slaves were permitted on deck in small groups for brief periods, where the crew would encourage, and many times force, captives to dance for exercise.
From an engraving entitled The Africans of the slave bark "Wildfire" brought into Key West on April 30, 1860 which appeared in Harpers Weekly on 2 June 1860. The picture shows a separation of sexes: African men crowded onto a lower deck, African women on an upper deck at the back.
• Diseases, such as dysentery, malaria, and smallpox killed thousands of Africans.
• Between 1699 and 1845 there were 55 successful African uprisings on slave ships.
William Snelgrave, from A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave Trade
• From 13% - 20% of the Africans aboard slave ships died during the Middle Passage.
THIS is the Vessel that had the Small-Pox on Board at the Time of her Arrival the 31st of March last: Every necessary Precaution hath since been taken to cleanse both Ship and Cargo thoroughly, so that those who may be inclined to purchase need not be under the least Apprehension of Danger from Infliction.
The NEGROES are allowed to be the likeliest Parcel that have been imported this Season.
The Door of No Return by Fortuné Bandeira (artist), Benin, Africa. A Memorial to the Slave Trade. It represents the actual “door of no return,” or the door to a slave fortress, the African’s last view of his homeland before being taken aboard a slave ship.
The Actual “Door of No Return” at Goree Island, Senegal
