Triangular Trade: Middle Passage

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The transport of black Africans to the Americas by slave ship became known as the Middle Passage because it was the middle leg of the Triangular Trade route used by the European merchants. The African slaves were viewed as cargo by the merchants and were packed into the ships with no regard to their basic human rights. Slave ships could be either 'tight pack' or 'loose pack'. A 'tight pack' could hold many more slaves than the 'loose pack' because the amount of space allocated to each slave was considerably less, but more slaves would die on route to the Americas. The famous diagram above shows how slaves were tightly packed into the slave ships. Other slaves were forced to spend the voyage sitting on deck, as on the ship 'Wildfire', pictured

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