With the slave trade open and the influx of "saltwater slaves" nearly continuous, enslaved people in the lowland had great difficulty forming families and reproducing themselves.
Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. You can read the introductory maps for a high-level guided explanation, view the timeline and chronology of ...
Explore or reconstruct the lives of individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the historical trade.
The outbreak of the Civil War forever changed the future of the American nation and perhaps most notably the future of Americans held in bondage. The war began as a struggle to preserve the Union, not a struggle to free the slaves but as the war dragged on it became increasingly clear to President Abraham Lincoln the best way to force the seceded states into submission was to undermine their ...
Slavery is the social and/or legal designation of specific persons as property, without the right to refuse work or receive payment. Where slavery is a legal practice, slaves may be held under the control of another person, group, organization, or state. Many cultures in history used slaves, often putting them to work in service of the rich, allowing them to live lives of luxury, or in service ...
From the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, Portuguese and Brazilian traders were responsible for transporting the highest volume of slaves during the transatlantic slave trade.