Slave Ships
Africans being loaded onto slave ship. n.d. Artist: Unknown
Schomburg Center, Photographs and Prints Division
Africans were forcibly removed from their homelands to work in the mines and on the plantations of Americas. The long voyage from Africa to the Americas was known as the Middle Passage. The slave ships were packed with human cargo and many Africans perished on the month-long crossing. Those who survived are the ancestors of most African Americans in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.