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A Dictionary of American History
Contents:
Middle Passage
Middle Passage Refers to the trans-Atlantic voyage of ships in the slave trade. The term is derived from the fact that the trans-Atlantic voyage came between the march of war captives or other prisoners in slave coffles from Africa’s inland regions to the coast, and the distribution of slaves among farms and plantations of the American hinterland after being sold. Unsanitary and crowded shipboard conditions produced heavy loss of life, but mortality rates declined from the 1600s, when perhaps 15 to 25 percent of slave cargoes died, to the late 1700s, when loss of life averaged closer to 10 percent. A like percentage of European sailors also died of diseases contracted from slaves during the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage to the thirteen colonies and the United States probably claimed the lives of 50,000 to 65,000 Africans.
Contents:
Chicago: Thomas L. Purvis, "Middle Passage," A Dictionary of American History in A Dictionary of American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Reference, 1995), Original Sources, accessed January 19, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=9G6PEW1XVPDS9VS.
MLA: Purvis, Thomas L. "Middle Passage." A Dictionary of American History, in A Dictionary of American History, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell Reference, 1995, Original Sources. 19 Jan. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=9G6PEW1XVPDS9VS.
Harvard: Purvis, TL, 'Middle Passage' in A Dictionary of American History. cited in 1995, A Dictionary of American History, Blackwell Reference, Cambridge, Mass.. Original Sources, retrieved 19 January 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=9G6PEW1XVPDS9VS.
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