The Middle Passage: Life and Death in the Slave Ship Hold

The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History · Jun 7, 2026 · 8m · transcript

This episode of Fexingo History takes you inside the brutal reality of the Middle Passage—the journey that carried millions of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. We focus on the human experience within the slave ship hold: the stench, the disease, the suffocating heat, and the constant threat of rebellion. Lucas and Luna explore the design of slave ships, the infamous Brookes diagram, mortality rates, and the psychological terror of the crossing. We also look at resistance—from shipboard mutinies to suicide—and how enslaved people fought back even in the most hopeless conditions. The…