Week 5 Discussion

The Middle Passage A Visualization Project

✤ Using a tape measure, plot out a space 16 ft. x 18 ft. Measure three feet up from the floor. This is how big the space was where slave women and children were kept in an 1829 ship. ✤ Traders put about 226 women and children in that space. ✤ It gave each about 13 inches of individual space.

✤ Take some time to imagine what the conditions described below must have felt like. Close your eyes if you need to. Picture what it would have been like to be in a slave ship crossing the Atlantic.

✤ Remember: ✤ You would be shackled and chained to other people. ✤ You have little, if any, fresh air or sunlight. ✤ Often shipmen raped African women.

✤ It could be up to two years from the time you were taken from your home to when you arrived at a slave labor camp in the Americas.

After your visualization, follow the link below for a virtual visit: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/collections/ middle_passage/

What are your impressions of this website? How do they present a different perspective of this history?