Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database facts for kids
Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is a special online collection of information. It's hosted at Rice University and helps us learn about the transatlantic slave trade. This was a terrible time in history when millions of African people were forcibly taken from their homes and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved. The database works with another project called African Origins.
The database shows which countries and kingdoms were involved in this trade. It helps us see the huge numbers of people who were taken.
| Country | Enslaved persons |
|---|---|
| Portugal |
5,848,266
|
| Great Britain |
3,259,441
|
| France |
1,381,404
|
| Spain |
1,061,524
|
| Netherlands |
554,336
|
| United States |
305,326
|
| Denmark |
111,040
|
Contents
Understanding the Transatlantic Slave Trade
The transatlantic slave trade was a system where people were bought and sold as property. This happened for over 300 years. It involved ships traveling from Europe to Africa, then to the Americas, and back to Europe. This journey is often called the "triangular trade."
What is the Voyages Database?
The Voyages database is like a huge digital library. It collects all the records and documents about the transatlantic slave trade. Its main goal is to show us the full picture of this dark period in history. By gathering all this information, historians and students can better understand what happened.
How Much Data Has Been Collected?
By 2008, the project had gathered information on almost 35,000 slave voyages. These voyages took place between 1501 and 1867. For each trip, researchers tried to find out important details. This included the dates of the voyage, the ship owners, the names of the vessels, and the captains.
They also looked for where the ships visited in Africa. They recorded their destinations in the Americas. Most importantly, they counted how many enslaved people were forced onto the ships. They also counted how many survived the journey and landed in the New World.
The project has found a lot of this information. They estimate they have details for about 80 percent of all transatlantic slave voyages. This means they have a very good idea of the total size of this trade.
The Scale of the Trade
The researchers estimate that over 366 years, about 12.5 million captives were forced onto ships in Africa. Of these, around 10.7 million people survived the journey and landed in the Americas.
A very sad discovery from this research is the number of lives lost during the "Middle Passage." This was the name for the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. The database estimates that more than 1.8 million African lives were lost during this horrific trip. These numbers represent individual enslaved people.
See also
External links
- Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
