17. The Macabre Passages of Slaves From Africa to the New World
The journey of Africans from what the Europeans referred to as the Dark Continent to the New World was broken into three macabre stages, that were often referred to as passages. Each of the passages was marked by its own cruelties and challenges, but it was the Middle Passage that was most infamous for the depths of inhumanity in that stage of the slaves’ journey. The process began with the First Passage, in which captive Africans were marched to the coast to get taken aboard ships.
The Middle Passage saw the Africans crammed into slave ships, packed like sardines to maximize the number of human cargo units, and chained in place in horrific conditions. The Final Passage was the surviving slaves’ journey from ports of disembarkation in the New World, such as Charleston, South Carolina, to the plantations or other destinations where they would be put to work. Depending on weather conditions and the prevailing winds, slave ships packed with chained unfortunates could take from one to six months to complete the Middle Passage.
