Alexander Falconbridge (c. 1760–1792) was a British surgeon who took part in four voyages in slave ships between 1780 and 1787. In time he became an abolitionist and in 1788 published An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa.

Phillips, at the age of 29 years and on his second voyage, became the captain of the infamous slave ship the Hannibal. Under his command he was directly responsible for the tragic deaths of 328 (47 per cent) of the 700 enslaved African women, men and children on board, along with 18 of his crew of 70.

The schooner Clotilda smuggled African captives into the U.S. in 1860, more than 50 years after importing slaves was outlawed.

The Middle Passage was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of dark-skinned and healthy West Africans were forcibly transported to the New World as part of the Atlantic slave trade.

Middle Passage, the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.

Western Africa (part of which became known as “the Slave Coast”), Angola and nearby Kingdoms and later Central Africa, became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labour.

The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.

In the early 17th century, as the Age of Colonization began in earnest, Africans had begun to come to North America to stay. In 1619, a year before English pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, a group of Africans were brought to the Jamestown colony in Virginia as indentured servants.

Breaking tools, feigning illness, staging slowdowns, and committing acts of arson and sabotage–all were forms of resistance and expression of slaves’ alienation from their masters. Running away was another form of resistance.

Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, beating, mutilation, branding, and/or imprisonment. Punishment was most often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but masters or overseers sometimes abused slaves to assert dominance.

On the opposite end of the resistance spectrum were more active and noticeable actions such as theft, arson, sabotage of crops, and running away. While these actions might be especially satisfying for a frustrated person to carry out, they also carried a far greater risk of detection and punishment.

There were three reasons that shaped the demand and supply of slaves across the Atlantic, each situated in another continent. The first reason was the demand for labour in the New World, where the indigenous Amerindian population rapidly declined after the arrival of the first European explorers.

Slavery, however, is only the first chapter of the tale. Beginning in 1800, slaves cultivated cotton for sixty years; but free blacks were cotton laborers for nearly a hundred years after emancipation.

To begin King Cotton diplomacy, some 2.5 million bales of cotton were burned in the South to create a cotton shortage. Indeed, the number of southern cotton bales exported to Europe dropped from 3 million bales in 1860 to mere thousands.

Instead of singing while they work, they are ordered to whistle. The cotton they spend the day picking is burned when the work is done, a clue that the setting may not be the Old South we’re accustomed to seeing onscreen.