middle passage

American  

Or Middle Passage

noun

History/Historical.

1. the part of the Atlantic Ocean between the west coast of Africa and the West Indies: the longest part of the journey formerly made by slave ships.

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middle passage British  

noun

1. history the journey across the Atlantic Ocean from the W coast of Africa to the Caribbean: the longest part of the journey of the slave ships sailing to the Caribbean or the Americas

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Etymology

Origin of middle passage

First recorded in 1780–90

Example Sentences

It switches between a ghostly, vaporous beat and a hectic middle passage filled with sampled and pitched-up voices and clattering percussion.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2026

During the deadly "middle passage" across the Atlantic, palm oil was a valued food that kept captives alive.

From Salon • Jul. 4, 2021

But in the next breath, he noted the “indignities, dehumanization and atrocities” of the middle passage, which he said his own ancestors survived.

From Washington Post • Aug. 24, 2019

Reading this passage, I’m reminded of the literary critic and poet Fred Moten’s theorizing of the hold, that cramped space in which slaves were kept beneath the slave ship’s deck during the middle passage.

From Slate • Jun. 7, 2018

He was glad to leave the selling to Ralf the Limper, who would use the coin to load his big ships with provisions for the long slow middle passage east.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin