Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage

The phrase “middle passage” refers to the process of transporting slaves from the ports of west and central Africa to the Americas. The encyclopaedia is organized entirely around this theme. Inevitably, the time‐frame is chiefly the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries although some entries touch on earlier events: e.g. the Description of Africa by Leo Africanus, 1550, the Huguenot slave trader Jean Barbot, born 1655 and an article on Galley Slaves. Some entries jump forward in time: the famous Amistad case of 1839 gets a mention but, also, as a separate entry, the film Amistad of 1997; also included is...