Middle Passage
The Middle Passage was the second leg of the infamous triangle trade that brought enslaved Africans to the Americas. Most of the slave trade journeys originated in Europe. Ships brought European goods -- cloth, brandy, guns, iron -- to West Africa, where the goods were exchanged for Africans. Enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas in the most inhumane conditions imaginable, hundreds of them chained and crammed together in the filthy holds of the ships. In North and South America and the Caribbean, the human cargo was exchanged for sugar, tobacco, and the like, which was then brought to Europe on the third leg of the triangle.