More than 12.5 million people were taken from Africa in the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. The transport of African slaves formed one leg of the Triangular Trade, an economic system that drastically altered the societies of four continents. The sheer scale of the trade can obscure the experiences of individuals. In this lesson, students consider individual experiences of the Middle Passage by exploring a textbook account and four primary sources.
Image: 1790 Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From the Wikimedia Commons.