The Middle Passage Ships departed Europe for African markets with commercial goods, which were in turn traded for kidnapped Africans who were transported across the Atlantic as slaves; the enslaved Africans were then sold or traded as commodities for raw materials, which would be transported back to Europe to complete the “triangular trade”. The term “Middle Passage” thus refers to that branch of the transatlantic trade in which millions of Africans were imprisoned, enslaved, and removed from their homelands
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