The “Middle Passage”: The Enforced Migration of Africans across the Atlantic

The enforced migration of Africans to the Americas in conditions of slavery lasted from the middle of the sixteenth century until the 1860s and constituted the largest movement of people across the Atlantic until the middle of the nineteenth century. Referred to as the notorious “Middle Passage” because of the terrible conditions on board slave ships, this migration involved at least 12 million people and was a major factor in the economic and demographic development of the colonies in the Americas, including the Caribbean region and Latin America, as well as North America. Merchants from Europe and the Americas were responsible for transporting and otherwise subjugating the enslaved Africans, who came from many parts of Africa, but mostly from the coastal regions of Sierra Leone and Guinea, modern Ghana, Nigeria, Angola and Congo—regions known as the upper Guinea coast, the Gold Coast, the Bights of Benin and Biafra, and west central Africa. The enslaved population included large numbers of specific ethnic groups, especially Akan, Gbe, Yoruba, Igbo, Ibibio, Kongo, and other Bantuspeaking people from west central Africa. Because of this concentration, many features of African culture, including religion, cuisine, and music, were transferred to the Americas and had a profound impact on the cultural amalgamation and transformation that occurred in the Americas, at least until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the transatlantic trade in slaves came to an end as a result of international pressure and the eventual emancipation of the enslaved population.