Holding Forts on the Coast - Useful links

Gorée Island
UNESCO's virtual guide to Gorée Island, a 45-acre piece of land with a 300-year history as a 'warehouse' for trafficked, enslaved people.
(Available in both French and English language versions).
http://webworld.unesco.org/goree/

Ancient Dutch Forts
This site from the Dutch embassy in Accra offers an insight into the history of Dutch fortifications in Ghana such as those at Fort Patience and Elmina.
http://www.ambaccra.nl/pages/c_forts.html

Elmina Castle
A detailed look at the tragic stories behind the walls and in the dungeons of Elmina Castle.
http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi3/elmina.htm

Cape Coast Castle
Multiple and haunting images of this former slave trading post are offered at this general tourism site.
http://www.roamin-about.com/capecoast.html

Slave Ships - Useful links

Slave Ships - An Overview
Through multiple accounts from slaves, slavers and seamen, this UK schools site offers a very comprehensive introduction to the workings of a slave ship. A cut away illustration of the slave ship Brookes is included.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASships.htm

Slave Shipping from the Port of London
Using graphs, this web page looks at the tonnage of slave ships which depatred from London. It shows the average number of voyages across the Atlantic and the numbers of slaves that died upon them.
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/Papers/Slavery/london.htm

Interior of a Slave Ship
As part of the Public Broadcasting service's Africans in America site this illustration of a slave ship taken from A History of the Amistad Captives shows how enslaved Africans were packed on board.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1h310.html

Life on the Slave Ships
This site explores the horrors of life below deck with illustrations by the artist Tom Feelings.
http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/students/his3487/lembrich/seminar53.html

Trouvadore - a Search, a Story
The Turks and Caicos Islands National Museum is leading an expedition on the 28 August 2004 to find the missing slave ship Trouvadore. The site will record their progress.
http://www.slaveshiptrouvadore.com

Middle Passage - A Way of Death - Useful links

An Observer Describes the Middle Passage
This harrowing eye-witness account documents some of the torments of the Middle Passage. The extract is from Eyewitness Accounts of Slavery in the Danish West Indies" by Paiewonsky.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2217/mpassage.htm

Conditions Aboard a Slave Ship
The rampant diseases and casual brutality of the Middle Passage are revealed at this page from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
http://www.gliah.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=35

Terrors of the Middle Passage
A very graphic and uncompromising account of the Middle Passage and its cruelties in this extract from Alexander Falconbridge's An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (London, 1788).
http://www.gliah.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=38

Death on the Slave Ships
Illustrations by the artist Tom Feelings accompany this overview of the mortality rate aboard slave ships.
http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/students/his3487/lembrich/seminar56.html

Revolts and Punishments - Useful links

Description of a Slave Uprising
An uprising on board the slaver Don Carlos in 1732 is described in an extract from A Supplement to the Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea by the sailor James Barbot.
http://www.gliah.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=36

Fasting During the Middle Passage
The writer Barry Unsworth highlights how enslaved Africans refused to eat as a form of resistance during the Middle Passage.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1i3069.html

The Amistad Uprising
An in-depth look at the 1839 slave rebellion on board the Amistad and its consequences.
http://www.tulane.edu/~amistad/

Shipboard Revolts
The history of African rebellions during the Middle Passage and along the West African coast is covered in this scholarly study by historian David Richardson.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/58.1/richardson.html

Fighting Back
A brief account of mid-Atlantic slave uprisings is accompanied by illustrations by artist Tom Feelings.
http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/students/his3487/lembrich/seminar55.html

Preparation for Sale - Useful links

Arrival in the 'New World'
This extract from Alexander Falconbridge's Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa (London, 1788) describes the processing of enslaved Africans on arrival in the Caribbean or Americas.
http://www.gliah.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=41

A Slave's Account of his Arrival in the Caribbean
Olaudah Equiano gives an account of his personal experiences of the holding yards.
http://www.gliah.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=40

'Seasoning' - an Overview
This section of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside site details the 'seasoning' processes which prepared recently arrived slaves for auction.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/slavery/arrival_america.asp

Arrival in North America
This site sets out two quizzes about the 'seasoning' process upon arrival in North America and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
http://www.mariner.org/captivepassage/arrival/index.html