today we're looking at the middle passage
hello welcome to the daily bell ringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at
the questions down in the description so today we're looking at the middle passage
which was the force journey of over 12 million enslaved africans to the americas
and this is a rather difficult and unpleasant topic to cover in history because it is arguably
one of the worst human rights violations ever to take place but it's important to understand these
terrible events that happen in order to have a better understanding of our past and hope that we
never allow something like this to happen again it was part of the system of slavery that developed
in the americas after europeans began to colonize north and south america it was called the middle
passage because it was considered to be the middle leg of the triangular trade system which developed
from the 1500s through the 1800s raw materials such as cotton wood and sugar would be loaded in
in ships in north america and then taken to europe where they would then be processed into finished
products such as rum guns and cloth these items would then be shipped to western africa and traded
there for enslaved africans who would then be loaded onto ships and then endure the roughly
80-day journey across the atlantic ocean to the americas during the transatlantic slave trade
between the years of 1525-1866 an estimated 12.5 million africans were forced to board slave ships
bound for the new world of that number 10.7 million survived the journey and
of that number an estimated 388 000 were taken directly to north america or the united states
slavery existed throughout the caribbean central america and south america almost 2 million died on
the journey itself from disease overcrowded ships starvation absolutely terrible conditions and many
died from suicide preferring to jump overboard rather than be forced into a life of slavery in
fact on many of the slave ships there were nets that were installed around the edges of the ship
to prevent anyone from jumping into the ocean nonetheless death was a normal occurrence on board
these ships as so many bodies were cast into the sea that during this time period of the atlantic
slave trade the migratory patterns of sharks in the atlantic ocean changed as they followed the
paths of these slave ships on their journey words can never really express how terrible the journey
was for enslaved africans from their homeland and it's honestly remarkable that anyone could survive
such an ordeal it started long before they were forced to board the slave ships bound for america
most were from central or western africa warring tribes would sell their prisoners of war to
european slave traders such as the british spanish french or dutch europeans rarely were directly
involved in capturing enslaved people kidnapping became a common practice as many africans found
that selling those people of a rival tribe or different ethnic group was very profitable
once slaves were purchased they were bound and forced to march hundreds of miles to the coast
where they were then placed in what became known as slave castles
these were basically warehouses where europeans or i'm sorry european slave traders would hold
what they considered to be their merchandise until ships arrived to take their cargo to the americas
the conditions in these slave castles was again absolutely deplorable with disease and starvation
everywhere and it's hard to decipher the exact numbers or attain the exact numbers but it's
estimated that 800 000 enslaved people died in these slave castles before even boarding ships
when the slave ships arrived on the coast they attempted to fit as many enslaved people as
possible on the vessels these ships were known as tight packers with enslaved people being forced
to lay down below deck with no room between them and then basically stacked and the temperatures
below deck could reach over 100 degrees and remember there's no bathrooms on board people
were forced to lay in their own waste which would then contribute to the spread of diseases such as
as dysentery and scurvy and slave people would be forced to come onto the top deck and dance
as a form of exercise now one thing i want you to consider when thinking about this journey is that
this was not just adults that were captured and forced into slavery there were entire families men
women children i mean children infants newborns were forced to endure the middle passage and the
horrors of slavery there were many slave uprisings aboard these ships but very few were successful
as you have to consider the crew of these ships were armed with guns while the captives on board
had nothing to fight with and two they had no navigational experience to know where they were
where to go and so even once they took over the ship they couldn't really get anywhere upon
arrival in america the enslaved people were taken off the ship and now sent to the market as if
they were simply products to be sold here families would be torn apart never to see each other again
the slave trade continued throughout the 1600s and 1700s but in the early 1800s many began to
recognize the evils of the slave trade in 1808 the slave trade was outlawed in the united states but
let me stress the importation of enslaved people was outlawed but not slavery itself
slavery would continue for many years and despite the fact that the importation of
enslaved people was outlawed there were still many ships smuggling enslaved people into america
in fact one of the most famous slave uprisings took place on one of these illegal smuggling
ships the amistad in 1839 the enslaved people on board took over the ship killing some of the crew
they ended up landing in america and were put on trial for murder their case went all the
way to the supreme court where former president john quincy adams defended them and it was found
that they were not guilty because they had been kidnapped and were being held against their will
and so they had the right to fight back and they were actually allowed to return home to africa
of course this was an extremely rare case the overwhelming majority endured a terrible journey
and a life of forced labor as i come to an end of this episode i feel compelled to restate
that there's really no words that i can use to express the terror of the middle passage it is an
episode in history that no one necessarily really wants to think about or recount because of just
how truly terrible it was and i hope that this episode has given you some more knowledge into the
events of the middle passage and i hope that you spent some time on your own learning more about
it and its significance so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you