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Stanford University
Stanford History Education Group: The Middle Passage
[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson plan on the Middle Passage includes PowerPoint presentation and primary source documents from which young scholars explore original material.
PBS
Pbs: Cet: Africans in America: The Middle Passage
This website contains pictures and descriptions of the Middle Passage voyage. Click on Teacher's Guide for teacher resources.
CommonLit
Common Lit: Olaudah Equiano Recalls the Middle Passage
A learning module that begins with "Olaudah Equiano Recalls the Middle Passage" by Olaudah Equiano, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be printed as a PDF or assigned...
Other
Juneteenth: The Middle Passage
Moving description of the Middle Passage and African American trauma through the perspective of the artist, Tom Feelings.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: African Americans in the British New World: The Middle Passage
A description of the Middle Passage, the leg of the triangular trade that brought slaves from Africa to America. Read descriptions of the way slaves were transported in the ships across the ocean.
PBS
Pbs: Cet: Africans in America: The Threat of Fasting During the Middle Passage
Description of how slaves tried to starve themselves to death on slave ships as a form of resistance, and how the slave traders forced them to eat so they would not lose money. Click on Teacher's Guide for teaching resources.
The History Cat
The History Cat: Us History: The Middle Passage
A detailed look at the trans-Atlantic slave trade that lasted from the 1500s to the 1800s.
Digital History
Digital History: Middle Passage
The number of Africans who died or were enslaved as a result of slave trading both across the Atlantic and into the Arabian peninsula is truly shocking. Read about the Middle Passage which brought millions of slaves to the New World, see...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: The African American Migration Story
From the transatlantic slave trade to today's New Great Migration, learn about the major African-American migrations and how those movements changed the course of American history.
Other
Liverpool and the Slave Trade: The Triangular Slave Trade
Information is provided on the three routes of the triangular slave trade: the middle passage, the outward passage, and the return passage.
Digital History
Digital History: The Slave Trade [Pdf]
Read Olaudah Equiano's account of being captured in his village in Africa, and placed on a slave ship to be taken to America. He describes the middle passage of the triangular trade route, as well as the leg from Europe to Africa. [pdf]
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Becoming Visible: Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller is presented in this biography for his plays revolving around post-World War II America, paying particular attention to the middle class and effects of Communism. See "Arthur Miller Activities" for related materials.
Nobel Media AB
The Nobel Prize: The Nobel Prize in Literature 2001
At this site from The Nobel Foundation you can read about V.S. Naipaul, the man who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature. His life and works are discussed in this detailed website,providing video, original texts and speeches and...
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: History Now: African Immigration to Colonial America
An interesting essay on the forced migration of Africans to America by way of the Middle Passage. Read where the slaves were off-loaded, how the population of slaves increased, and the inhumanities inflicted on the slaves both on the...
Hanover College
Hanover College: Slave Narrative of Olaudah Equiano Vol. 1
The complete text of a famous slave narrative from the late 18th century (1789), it tells the story on how Equiano is captured in Africa, transported to the Americas and his experiences as a slave. It provides rich details about the...
OpenStax
Open Stax: African Americans in the Antebellum United States
This section of a chapter on "The Antebellum South" discusses the similarities and differences in the lives of slaves and free blacks and describes the independent culture and customs that slaves developed.
OpenStax
Open Stax: The Impact of Colonization
By reading this section of a chapter on "Colonial Societies," students will be able to explain the reasons for the rise of slavery in the American colonies, describe changes in Indian life, including warfare and hunting, contrast...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: The Slave Trade
Article and questions for discussion on the slave trade. Students read about how Europeans captured, transported, and sold African men, women and children into slavery.
Mariners' Museum and Park
Mariners' Museum: Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Online exhibition from the Mariners' Museum chronicles the plight of African slaves from the beginning of their journey when they are torn from their homeland all the way to the shores of the Americas. Caught up in the lucrative...
Other
United States History: Ch. 3 Sec. 1: The Southern Colonies [Pdf]
A chapter from a history text that looks at the development of the Southern Colonies. It discusses the Southern agricultural economy that relied on slave labor, tobacco as a cash crop, Southern society, indentured servitude, Bacon's...
Other
Hillcrest High School: The Colonies Come of Age: The Agricultural South [Pdf]
A chapter from a history text that looks at the plantation economy of the Southern colonies, which relied on slave labor. It discusses the role of women as second class citizens, the cash crops that were grown, indentured servitude, the...
Other
Postcolonial and Postimperial Authors: v.s. Naipaul
An excellent resource on V.S. Naipaul, a Carribean writer, this website provides articles on his status as a "rootless wanderer," his major works, and the key themes and ideas conveyed in Naipaul's writing.
Understanding Slavery Initiative
Understanding Slavery Initiative: Resistance and Rebellion
Enslaved Africans fought hard to win back their freedom through resistance, rebellions, and uprisings. Rebellions along the Middle Passage and in places like the Caribbean were important to the retention of African culture.
PBS
Pbs's Africans in America: Equiano's Autobiography
Chapter two of "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano," the autobiography of a man abducted from Africa and forced into slavery before later obtaining his freedom. This chapter details his capture and eventual journey...