Grades 6–12 | Aurora Homeschool Academy · BleuLearn Curriculum
This volume documents: The documented scale of the transatlantic slave trade — approximately 36,000 voyages, 12.5 million Africans loaded onto slave ships, 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage (14.4% mortality). Documented resistance includes the Stono Rebellion (1739, South Carolina) and the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). The United States received approximately 389,000 — the smallest documented receiving region.
Background context: Brazil received approximately 4.9 million enslaved people — the largest documented receiving region. The Caribbean received the majority of the rest. This is why the African diaspora is concentrated in Brazil, the Caribbean, and Latin America far more than in the United States. The Slave Voyages Database is maintained by Emory University and the Hutchins Center at Harvard and is freely available at slavevoyages.org — the most comprehensive documented record of the transatlantic slave trade.
Available free at slavevoyages.org. Compiled by Emory University and the Hutchins Center at Harvard.
Documented data: approximately 36,000 voyages. Approximately 12.5 million Africans loaded onto slave ships. Approximately 10.7 million survived the Middle Passage. Documented mortality rate: approximately 14.4%. British North America received approximately 389,000 documented enslaved people — the smallest documented receiving region.
Apply the Four Questions
The Four Questions: (1) Who wrote it? (2) When? (3) What does it say? (4) Why does it matter? Use specific words from the document in every answer.
Q1 — Who created this? What institutions compiled this database? How does its documented scholarly origin affect its reliability as evidence? Why does it matter that this is a database, not a narrative?
Q2 — When? The voyages span approximately 1514–1866. What does 350+ years document about the scale of slavery as an economic system? What does the end date (1866 — one year after the 13th Amendment) document?
Q3 — What does it say? Using only the numbers above: how many people did not survive the Middle Passage? Show your calculation. What does that number represent in terms of documented human loss?
Q4 — Why does it matter? The U.S. received approximately 389,000 — the smallest region. What does this document about where the majority of the African diaspora lives today, and why? What does it change about how Americans think about slavery as primarily an American story?
Documentary mathematics: 12,500,000 loaded − 10,700,000 survived = ________ who died in the Middle Passage. That is ________% of the total. Show your work.
Claim–Evidence–Warrant
Write one paragraph: Make a claim about the scale and global nature of the transatlantic slave trade. Cite the Slave Voyages Database as evidence. Explain the connection (warrant).
BleuLearn Pause
What does this primary source document that a textbook's description of the same event would not?
Archive Assignment
Access slavevoyages.org. Use the database to find the documented number of voyages that departed from one specific African nation of your choice. Write the nation, the number of documented voyages, and apply Question 3: