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The Slave Trade

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Triangular Trade Colonial merchant ships followed trade routes between the colonies, Europe, Africa, and the West Indies that formed triangles.

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Triangular Trade

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The Middle Passage One leg of the trade route involved shipping African slaves to the New World. Most of the slaves were shipped and sold in the West Indies, the islands of the Caribbean. They were forced to work on large plantations. Some were sold in the British colonies that would later become the United States.

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The Slave Trade

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Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano was born into a wealthy West African family in 1745. Olaudah Equiano's father was a village chief. He had seven children and many slaves, so Equiano grew up in a slave society. But it was a different kind of slavery.

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Olaudah Equiano With us the slaves do no more work than other members of the community, than even their master; their food, clothing and lodging were nearly the same as ours, except that they were not permitted to eat with those who were free-born

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Olaudah is kidnapped When Olaudah was eleven years old, he was kidnapped by African slave traders. He was sold several times in Africa before being sold to European slave traders. Olaudah was taken as a slave to the New World.

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Slave Auctions

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"I was soon surrounded by strange men who examined and handled me in the same way that a butcher would a calf or a lamb he was about to purchase, and who talked about my shape and size in like wordsI was then put up to sale the people who stood by said that I had fetched a great sum for one so young a slave. I then saw my sisters led forth and sold to different ownersWhen the sale was over, my mother hugged and kissed us and mourned over us, begging us to keep a good heartIt was a sad parting, one went one way, one another, and our poor mammy went home with nothing." Taken from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave

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A Happy Ending for Olaudah Olaudah was a slave for many years but managed to save up enough money to buy his freedom. He moved to London, England where he fought against slavery. Olaudah died in 1797 at the age of 52. England banned the slave trade 10 years later.

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Slavery in the U.S. Although many people in the United States were opposed to slavery, it was not eliminated until the end of the Civil War, in 1865.

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The Slave Trade

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The Middle Passage

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