What Life On a Slave Ship Was Like

The Atlantic Slave Trade saw millions of Africans removed from their homeland, shipped across an ocean, and forced to work in brutal conditions in the Americas. The trip itself, known as the Middle Passage, was a horrible, deadly, and inhumane experience. The conditions on slave ships were dirty, scary, and offered no amount of comfort to the enslaved passengers. With little understanding of what was to come and even less hope of ever being free again, captives on slave ships would resort to tears, acts of defiance, and even suicide to try escaping their plight. To this day, we are still uncovering evidence that attests to the horrible realities of slavery - but no amount of scholarship and understanding will change the scarring experiences of slave ship conditions. #TransAtlanticSlaveTrade #ColonialAmerica #WeirdHistory