| Middle Passage |
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| african slave trade | |
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| african-american history | |
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The Middle Passage took anywhere from two to five months depending on weather conditions with wind conditions varying by time of year. The ships used were designed for the transport of goods rather than people since two of the legs of the triangular trade involved cargo such as casks of Rum or Molasses or crates of textiles and other goods or bales of Cotton and Tobacco . Due to this design, the conditions aboard ships running the Middle Passage with slaves were poor with practically nonexistent Sanitation facilities as the ships were not designed for the transport of several hundred people. Warring Africans sold prisoners to Europeans who held several coastial ports or when there was a rare opportunity the Europeans themselves captured slaves. The slaves were usually force marched to these ports along the western coast of Africa where they were held for purchase to the European or American Slave Traders . The purchased slaves were usually packed into the ships with nearly 300 slaves accompanied by approximately 35 crew. The male slaves were normally chained together in pairs to save space — right leg to the next man's left leg — while the women and children may have had somewhat more room. The captives were fed very small portions of corn, yams, rice, and palm oil, normally just enough to sustain them. Sometimes captives were allowed to move around during the day, but many ships kept the Shackles on throughout the journey. With the outlawing of the Atlantic Slave trade by Great Britain and the United States in the first decade of the 1800s, the transport of slaves from Africa to the Americas dwindled to a trickle and then disappeared by the middle of the century. Within the United States, several Southern Slave State s (primarily Virginia ) provided slaves to other slave states especially the new states coming into existence as the United States expanded westward (see Northwest Ordinance ). This slave trade internal to the United States ended with the Emancipation Proclamation , the American Civil War , and the Thirteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution . It is estimated that some 15 million slaves were transported from Africa with 3 million dying during the journey. Disease and starvation due to the length of the passage were the main contributors to the death toll with Amoebic Dysentery and Scurvy causing the majority of deaths. Additionally, outbreaks of Smallpox , Measles , and other diseases spread rapidly in the close-quarter compartments. The number of dead increased with the length of voyage, since the incidence of dysentery and of scurvy increased with longer stints at sea as the quality and amount of food and water diminished with every passing day. EXTERNAL LINKS
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