middle passage

or Middle Passage

noun

, History/Historical.

1. the part of the Atlantic Ocean between the west coast of Africa and the West Indies: the longest part of the journey formerly made by slave ships.

middle passage

noun

1. the middle passage
   history the journey across the Atlantic Ocean from the W coast of Africa to the Caribbean: the longest part of the journey of the slave ships sailing to the Caribbean or the Americas

Word History and Origins

Origin of middle passage¹

First recorded in 1780–90

Example Sentences

Roy focuses in particular on how these Black writers responded to the experience of the Middle Passage — the traumatic journey from Africa to America made by newly enslaved people — which he describes as “cheating social death,” and on how they used “the established part of an existing system to create a new one that serves a fundamentally different form or function.”

From Salon

Her recent solo exhibition, “All of No Man’s Land Is Ours,” at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, explored her longtime preoccupation with marine life, the Middle Passage and the transportation of enslaved people.

From New York Times

Unlike the King Center, his focus was on the whole African American experience, from Africa to the Middle Passage, and from enslavement to the civil rights campaign and beyond.

From New York Times

The Middle Passage transforms them to this unified thing.

From Los Angeles Times

The Middle Passage was the portion of the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas, where kidnapped Africans were taken to the Americas for sale to be enslaved.

From Salon