Poem about the Atlantic Crossing
This poem about the Atlantic crossing of slaves from Africa to America is often called the Middle Passage. The poem evokes emotions and feelings that are perhaps more effective than facts and figures about the slave trade.
The sheer number of forts along the coast gives an idea about how widespread the slave trade was and how many Europeans were making money from the trade in human beings.
Slaves were predominantly taken along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. Modern Sierra Leone and Liberia were called the Malagueta (a kind of black pepper) Coast, Cote d’Ivoire Ghana and Togo formed the Gold Coast, Benin and Nigeria were called the Slave Coast.
View Slave Coast of Africa in a larger map