Slave Ship Blueprint Griot Museum of Black History
Description
This bird’s eye view of a boat, which at first glance seems to contain rows of interlocking, black and white puzzle pieces, but on closer examination it becomes evident that the shapes are people. Each silhouette represents the space allotted for a human being—so close to one another they merge and blur.
History This drawing and description of a slave ship is one of several published and available during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when many European and American merchants engaged in a complex global trade system that included the buying and selling of humans and lasted approximately three hundred years. On the first leg of the Triangle Trade Route ships carried goods manufactured in Europe to the west coast of Africa where captured Africans were bought. On the Middle Passage of the journey, the enslaved human beings were tortured to mentally, physically, and spiritually break them before they were delivered to the Americas where they were sold. For the next leg of the journey, the ships were filled with products such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, and rice to be sold in European countries. The cycle was then repeated with manufactured goods being transported to the coast of Africa. Although some countries eventually outlawed slave trading, the trade and sale of those who were already in the United States was not outlawed until after the Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.
