The Atlantic slave trade can be understood through its sheer magnitude: for 366 years, European slavers loaded approximately 12.5 million Africans onto Atlantic slave ships. About 11 million survived the Middle Passage to landfall and life in the Americas.
The Atlantic slave trade can also be understood through the experiences of a single enslaved person who endured a series of catastrophic events that severed him or her from home, family, and nearly all things familiar. Capture in the African interior, transport to the coast, sale to slave traders, and sale and enslavement in the Americas tested the spirit and will of resilient men, women, and children who struggled to find meaning and happiness in a New World dependent upon their labor and coercion.
While most people have heard about the Atlantic slave trade, very few are knowledgeable about the actual details.