Survivors of the Middle Passage: Life Histories of Enslaved Africans in British America
Posted under Atlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade
2002 Survivors of the Middle Passage: Life Histories of Enslaved Africans in British America. Slavery & Abolition 23:25-56.
This paper describes fifteen autobiographical accounts by Africans who survived the physical and psychic hardships of the transatlantic crossing and passed a portion of their lives enslaved in the British Caribbean or British North America during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I focus on what the autobiographers relate about their lives in Africa before being taken from their homelands, how they were captured/kidnapped, transported to coastal ports and placed aboard ships, and their personal experiences during the transatlantic crossing.
Survivors of the Middle Passage: Life Histories of Enslaved Africans in British America