ADVERTISEMENT
Faithfully Magazine
  • News
    • All
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • World
    David Wenwei Chou

    FBI Probes Attack on Taiwanese American Churchgoers in California as Hate Crime

    Ruth Whitfield

    God-Loving Matriarch and Devoted Church Deacon Among Buffalo Shooting Victims

    Crystal Mason provisional ballot

    Texas Court Must Reconsider Illegal Voting Conviction of Black Woman Sentenced to 5 Years

    Kelly Neidert UNT

    ‘The Most Hated Conservative College Student in the State’: How a Texas Student Embroiled Her Campus in a Culture War

  • Clippings
    Dr. John Cheng, 52, was fatally shot by David Chou

    Dr. John Cheng Hailed as Hero for Stopping Laguna Woods Church Gunman

    The May 13, 2022, funeral procession of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh in Jerusalem

    Israeli Police Attack Christian Journalist’s Funeral Procession, Beat Mourners

    cellphone

    Nigerian Student Beaten to Death, Set on Fire for Critical WhatsApp Post of Prophet Muhammad

    Indian Boarding School Students

    Christians Likely Helped Run Half of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools

  • Features
    children in a classroom getting education

    On Race and Schools, Here’s What Americans Agree and Disagree On

    Kelly Neidert UNT

    ‘The Most Hated Conservative College Student in the State’: How a Texas Student Embroiled Her Campus in a Culture War

    Stop Asian Hate sign

    ‘We Are Being Hunted’ — Asian Americans Say They Are More Scared Now Than Ever

    Ida B. Wells Doll Barbie

    Ida B. Wells Barbie Doll Faces an Uphill Battle Against Anti-Blackness

  • Inspiration
    • All
    • Bible
    • First-Person Essay
    • Poetry
    Everything Everywhere All At Once. (A24 Films)

    ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ & the Absurdity of Love as Resistance

    God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God's Unexpected Coming

    The Gospels Give Birth to Poetry (‘God Speaks Through Wombs’ Excerpt)

    two women talk

    100 Proverbs That Teach Us How to Speak, Listen, and Respectfully Disagree

    Rapper J Cole and a hanging tree

    J. Cole’s ‘Javari,’ the Cross, and the Lynching Tree

  • Members
  • About Us
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise With Us
SUBSCRIBE
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • World
    David Wenwei Chou

    FBI Probes Attack on Taiwanese American Churchgoers in California as Hate Crime

    Ruth Whitfield

    God-Loving Matriarch and Devoted Church Deacon Among Buffalo Shooting Victims

    Crystal Mason provisional ballot

    Texas Court Must Reconsider Illegal Voting Conviction of Black Woman Sentenced to 5 Years

    Kelly Neidert UNT

    ‘The Most Hated Conservative College Student in the State’: How a Texas Student Embroiled Her Campus in a Culture War

  • Clippings
    Dr. John Cheng, 52, was fatally shot by David Chou

    Dr. John Cheng Hailed as Hero for Stopping Laguna Woods Church Gunman

    The May 13, 2022, funeral procession of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh in Jerusalem

    Israeli Police Attack Christian Journalist’s Funeral Procession, Beat Mourners

    cellphone

    Nigerian Student Beaten to Death, Set on Fire for Critical WhatsApp Post of Prophet Muhammad

    Indian Boarding School Students

    Christians Likely Helped Run Half of U.S. Indian Boarding Schools

  • Features
    children in a classroom getting education

    On Race and Schools, Here’s What Americans Agree and Disagree On

    Kelly Neidert UNT

    ‘The Most Hated Conservative College Student in the State’: How a Texas Student Embroiled Her Campus in a Culture War

    Stop Asian Hate sign

    ‘We Are Being Hunted’ — Asian Americans Say They Are More Scared Now Than Ever

    Ida B. Wells Doll Barbie

    Ida B. Wells Barbie Doll Faces an Uphill Battle Against Anti-Blackness

  • Inspiration
    • All
    • Bible
    • First-Person Essay
    • Poetry
    Everything Everywhere All At Once. (A24 Films)

    ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ & the Absurdity of Love as Resistance

    God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God's Unexpected Coming

    The Gospels Give Birth to Poetry (‘God Speaks Through Wombs’ Excerpt)

    two women talk

    100 Proverbs That Teach Us How to Speak, Listen, and Respectfully Disagree

    Rapper J Cole and a hanging tree

    J. Cole’s ‘Javari,’ the Cross, and the Lynching Tree

  • Members
  • About Us
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise With Us
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
No Result
View All Result

Middle Passage Should Be Memorialized for 12 Million Africans Forced Into Transatlantic Slave Trade, Scholars Say

Nicola A. Menzie by Nicola A. Menzie
November 10, 2020
in History, News, World
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
transatlantic slave ship drawing

Men and woman seen on a slave ship. (Photo: Luciana Mc Namara, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons)

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on RedditShare on LinkedInEmail This
ShareTweetPin It

A group of scholars is calling for the Atlantic seabed to be internationally recognized as a memorial site for the millions of Africans who endured arduous voyages as human cargo during the transatlantic slave trade. The route, in which more than a million Africans died due to inhumane conditions, is referred to as the Middle Passage.

“From before the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 1519 to after the end of the American Civil War in 1865, more than 12.5 million Africans were held captive on one of more than 40,000 voyages, each voyage averaging [about] 60 days,” reads the scholars’ article, published November 3, 20202, in Marine Policy journal.

Mosaic Coffee

“Conditions for Africans aboard slave vessels were inhumane, with most ships holding between 200 and 400 individuals in close and squalid quarters below deck. Confined spaces, inadequate nutrition, and limited opportunity for personal hygiene led to descriptions of the slave ships as a ‘marketplace’ for diseases…,” they add. “The ‘cargo’—enslaved Africans—experienced unimaginable terror and violence as sailors established authority through physical, emotional, and psychological conditioning. Illness, insanity, hunger, dehydration, torture, revolt, suicide, and ship wreck led to the death of [about] 1.8 million Africans at sea during their Middle Passage.”

RELATED STORIES

Overtly White Supremacist Ideology Is Being Sanitized and Mainstreamed

FBI Probes Attack on Taiwanese American Churchgoers in California as Hate Crime

This illustration shows deck plans and cross sections of the British slave ship Brookes
This illustration shows deck plans and cross sections of the British slave ship Brookes. (Photo: Plymouth Chapter of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
drawing slave ship aboard
This engraving shows men and woman enslaved aboard a ship being shackled and sent below deck. (Photo: Swain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The scholars, among them a representative of The Ocean Foundation in Washington, D.C., specifically call on the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to embrace the virtual memorial. The intergovernmental ISA, based in Kingston, Jamaica, is tasked with overseeing mineral-related activities in the world’s oceans “for the benefit of mankind as a whole.”

Underscoring the ISA’s responsibility “to protect objects of an archeological and historical nature” discovered in its jurisdiction, the scholars suggest religious and cultural artifacts bearing significance to the transatlantic slave trade could be buried beneath the Atlantic seabed. The transatlantic slave route included voyages originating mostly from western Africa to mostly parts of South America, although southeast Africa, Europe, and the United States were integral (as shown in the map below.

proposed virtual memorial ISA map
The scholars’ proposed virtual memorial map for the International Seabed Authority. (Photo: source)

“We encourage Member States of the ISA to consider ways to respect and memorialize those who lost their lives and came to rest on the seabed in advance of mineral exploitation,” they write, insisting this can be done without negatively impacting “exploitation of mineral resources.”

Online memorials, such as slavevoyages.com, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Slave Wrecks Project, already seek to “humanize the history of the global slave trade.” However, these scholars are calling on the intergovernmental authority overseeing oceanic exploration to add clear markings to its maps that delineate slave-trade routes along the northern and southern Atlantic Ocean.

A virtual memorial, in which ribbons on ISA maps would outline the leading routes of the transatlantic slave trade, could suffice in also honoring the stolen lives of Africans forced into the Middle Passage. The group suggests that such a Middle Passage memorial would fall in line with global calls for justice in the wake of George Floyd’s May 2020 death in police custody.

“The virtual memorial proposed…may serve as a reminder of past injustice and a contribution to the continuing pursuit of justice,” the scholars argue.

The scholars include Phillip J. Turner, Sophie Cannon, Sarah DeLand, James P. Delgado, David Eltis, Patrick N. Halpin, Michael I. Kanu, Charlotte S. Sussman, Ole Varmer, and Cindy L. Van Dover. They represent such institutions as Duke University and the U.K.’s University of Southampton and also the Republic of Sierra Leone Permanent Mission to the United Nations, among others. Their article, entitled “Memorializing the Middle Passage on the Atlantic seabed in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction,” was made available online.

Leave your vote

0 Points
Upvote Downvote

Browse and manage your votes from your Member Profile Page

What's Your Reaction?

  • AngryAngry
    0
    Angry
  • CuteCute
    0
    Cute
  • CryCry
    0
    Cry
  • LOLLOL
    0
    LOL
  • LoveLove
    0
    Love
  • OMGOMG
    0
    OMG

REPRINT REQUESTS | MEMBERSHIPS | GIVE



Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
ShareTweetPin It

Related Posts

Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York

Overtly White Supremacist Ideology Is Being Sanitized and Mainstreamed

David Wenwei Chou

FBI Probes Attack on Taiwanese American Churchgoers in California as Hate Crime

Upcoming Live Events

There are no upcoming Events at this time.

Recently Published

  • Overtly White Supremacist Ideology Is Being Sanitized and Mainstreamed
  • Dr. John Cheng Hailed as Hero for Stopping Laguna Woods Church Gunman
  • FBI Probes Attack on Taiwanese American Churchgoers in California as Hate Crime
  • God-Loving Matriarch and Devoted Church Deacon Among Buffalo Shooting Victims
  • Israeli Police Attack Christian Journalist’s Funeral Procession, Beat Mourners
Mosaic Coffee
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Newsletter

© 2022 Faithfully Media LLC, owner and operator. All rights reserved. This site participates in the Amazon Associates program, and other affiliate programs, and may earn a commission from your purchases.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Clippings
  • Features
  • Spotlight
  • Inspiration
  • Log In
    • Your Profile
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
close

Log In

Sign In

Login with Facebook
Login with Twitter
Forgot password?

Don't have an account? Register

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Back to Login

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Accept

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Send this to a friend