American History
Black American History
From the kingdoms of West Africa through bondage, freedom, and the building of a people whose culture reshaped the nation.
1526 to the presentSlavery, freedom, and culture
The Largest Forced Migration in History
Before the chains there were nations. This is the story of how millions of Africans were torn from thriving societies and carried across the Atlantic, and of the resilience they carried with them.
The Middle Passage carried captive Africans across the Atlantic in conditions that killed roughly 1.8 million people.
Sources & Further Reading
- Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- National Archives, African American Heritage
- Library of Congress
- SlaveVoyages, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
- U.S. Census Bureau, The Great Migration
- National Endowment for the Humanities
Figures on the transatlantic trade are drawn from the SlaveVoyages database and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Great Migration and Reconstruction figures are drawn from the National Archives, the U.S. Census Bureau, and university research collections.