ABSTRACT
A few systems of human exploitation have been as devastating or as decisive in producing lasting hostilities as the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of black enslavement that fueled its existence. Beginning in the fifteenth century, between ten million and twelve million Africans were captured and then shipped to various points of bondage in the Americas. The full impact of this unprecedented forced migration cannot be appreciated until one considers that probably another ten million to twelve million captives died in the treacherous march to the African coast and the harrowing ocean voyage. Although fewer than five hundred thousand of those who survived the ordeal of savage disruption and displacement found themselves enslaved in North America, this segment of the African diaspora grew to a population of four million by the time of the Civil War. The way of life these bondpeople experienced in the antebellum era, the last sixty-five years of black American captivity, is the focus of this essay.
