Themes

• West African History
• Triangular Trade
• Middle Passage
• Slavery
  • Background information
• Resistance & Rebellion
• Abolition
• Emancipation
• Legacy
• Diaspora

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Conditions on the plantations

Most enslaved Africans were sold to a plantation either to work in the fields or as domestic slaves in the plantation houses. Conditions were extremely harsh as slaves were forced to work in order for British plantation owners to make vast economic gains. They cultivated crops that were highly sought-after in Britain, especially sugar, coffee, cocoa, and tobacco, and were given the most basic provisions in terms of food and living quarters.

The background information provides an overview of slavery on the plantations, the experience of how people were separated from their families, sold at auctions or in ?scrambles?, and were often renamed in this process. It documents the severe ?punishments? meted out by the plantocracy ? both men and women.

Read more background information

Slavery (1 of 3)
    Sold and re-named

Slavery (2 of 3)
    Accounts of slavery