The Middle Passage Summary

The Middle Passage
How is Africa characterized before Europeans began the slave trade? Africa was an up and coming country prior to slave trade. Tribes and villages were growing and gaining power. Africa was also an active trader with China and other countries. Many kingdoms were growing and flourishing in Africa because of the trans-oceanic trade. Africa did not have religious diversity. There was not many major centralised states that existed, and many people lived in societies where there were no great divisions of wealth and power. There were generally more democratic systems of government by councils of elders and age based institutions. there was also a diversity of religious and philosophical beliefs. In most parts of Africa there …show more content…
Africa's ability to defend itself was seriously compromised because of this. This also made African culture become lost because of the amount of people movements in the country.
What, to you, was the most surprising, distressing, or otherwise notable part of the documentary? Why? The part that stuck out to me the most was the treatment of slaves. These people were ripped from their culture, families, homes, and comforts to come to a foreign land to work until they die. Children were left to die by themselves in Africa because they were too young to be bought, but their parents/siblings were traded. It is so shocking to me that human beings can treat other human beings like they are less than. The slave ‘dungeons’ in the castles on the west coast of Africa was also disgusting to me because these innocent people were dragged into these holes in the ground and kept there. The ships were also terribly disgusting. These people were stacked into the bowels of these ships, and left there to starve and die. They had to sit in awkward and unsettling positions in order to all fit. The slave trade was awful and disgusting and the treatment of these people groups is what stuck out to me the