Around 12.5 million people were forced onto ships out of Africa; about 10.7 million survived the passage. Some 36,000 voyages are recorded. These fifteen are ones whose papers, logs or wrecks survive well enough to say where the ship went, when she sailed, who was aboard and what else she carried. Open the routes layer on the map to see them drawn against the homelands.
Ships, dates, ports and numbers here follow the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and surviving ships' papers. Where a figure was never recorded, it is left blank rather than estimated.
Jesus of Lübeck
Departed Plymouth 18 October 1564
- Taken aboard
- 400
- Landed alive
- Unrecorded
- Died or unaccounted
- Unrecorded
- Cargo
- Outbound: cloth, iron and manillas. Homeward: hides, sugar, pearls and silver.
John Hawkins' second slaving voyage, in a warship lent to him by Elizabeth I. Captives were seized by raid and bought along the Guinea coast and sold, under threat of force, to Spanish colonists who were forbidden to trade with him. The voyage's profit is what drew English capital into the trade.
Fitted out and sailed · 18 Oct 1564
Plymouth, England
People taken aboard · Dec 1564 – Jan 1565
Sierra Leone and the Guinea coast
About 400 people taken, many in armed raids on villages.
Docked · Apr–May 1565
Borburata and Río de la Hacha (Venezuela / Colombia)
Sold to Spanish settlers after Hawkins trained guns on the towns.
Portugal, then English privateers · 1619
São João Bautista → White Lion & Treasurer
Left Luanda in July 1619
- Taken aboard
- 350
- Landed alive
- 60
- Died or unaccounted
- 290
- Cargo
- A single human cargo, consigned to the silver mines and estates of New Spain.
The Portuguese ship São João Bautista carried about 350 people from Luanda, most of them Kimbundu-speakers from the Ndongo kingdom. Roughly 150 died at sea. Off the Mexican coast two English privateers, the White Lion and the Treasurer, robbed her of some 60 captives. The White Lion put about 20 ashore at Point Comfort in Virginia in late August 1619 — the first recorded Africans in the English mainland colonies.
People taken aboard · Jul 1619
Luanda, Angola
About 350 Ndongo captives taken aboard after the Portuguese wars in Angola.
What became of her · Aug 1619
Bay of Campeche — intercepted at sea
Two English privateers took roughly 60 people; the ship went on to Veracruz with 147.
Docked · Late Aug 1619
Point Comfort, Virginia
About 20 people landed from the White Lion, traded for provisions.
Docked · 30 Aug 1619
Veracruz, New Spain
147 survivors of the original 350 disembarked.
Massachusetts Bay Colony · 1637–1638
Desire
Sailed from Marblehead in 1637
- Taken aboard
- Unrecorded
- Landed alive
- Unrecorded
- Died or unaccounted
- Unrecorded
- Cargo
- Outbound: captive Pequot men and boys taken in the Pequot War. Homeward: enslaved Africans, cotton, tobacco and salt.
The first New England ship known to carry enslaved people. She took Pequot captives from the 1637 massacre to Providence Island and the West Indies and returned to Boston in February 1638 with enslaved Africans aboard — the two trades locked together in a single voyage.
Fitted out and sailed · 1637
Marblehead, Massachusetts
Docked · 1637–38
Providence Island / Tortuga
Pequot captives sold into Caribbean slavery.
Docked · 26 Feb 1638
Boston, Massachusetts
Returned carrying enslaved Africans.
England (Royal African Company) · 1693–1694
Hannibal
Left the Downs 5 September 1693
- Taken aboard
- 700
- Landed alive
- 372
- Died or unaccounted
- 328
- Cargo
- Outbound: cowrie shells, textiles, iron bars, brandy and firearms.
Captain Thomas Phillips' own journal records the trade: 700 people bought at Whydah at about £12 a head, of whom 328 died on the crossing, mostly of dysentery and smallpox. Twelve drowned themselves rather than continue. It is one of the most detailed accounts of a Middle Passage written by a captain.
Fitted out and sailed · Sep 1693
London, England
People taken aboard · May–Jul 1694
Whydah (Ouidah), Bight of Benin
700 people purchased from the king of Whydah's factors.
Docked · Sep 1694
Bridgetown, Barbados
372 survivors sold; 328 had died at sea.
Henrietta Marie
Cleared London in 1699
- Taken aboard
- 250
- Landed alive
- 190
- Died or unaccounted
- 60
- Cargo
- Outbound: pewter, glass beads, copper bars, cloth and iron shackles. Homeward: sugar, indigo, cotton and logwood.
Wrecked on New Ground Reef off the Florida Keys in 1700 on her way home. Her excavation recovered shackles sized for adults and for children, and the ship's bell — the most complete physical evidence of an English slaving vessel ever found.
Fitted out and sailed · 1699
London, England
People taken aboard · 1699–1700
New Calabar and Whydah
About 250 people taken aboard along the Bight of Biafra and Bight of Benin.
Docked · 18 May 1700
Port Royal, Jamaica
190 people sold.
What became of her · Summer 1700
New Ground Reef, Florida Keys
Lost with all hands on the homeward leg; found again in 1972.
Le Diligent
Departed Vannes 12 June 1731
- Taken aboard
- 256
- Landed alive
- 209
- Died or unaccounted
- 47
- Cargo
- Outbound: Breton cloth, brandy, cowries and muskets. Homeward: sugar and indigo.
A small Breton ship whose first mate, Robert Durand, kept a journal illustrated with watercolours. It records the purchase of 256 people at Jakin, the daily rations, the shackling routine and the deaths — an unusually intimate record of a single French voyage.
Fitted out and sailed · 12 Jun 1731
Vannes, Brittany
People taken aboard · Nov 1731 – Jan 1732
Jakin, Bight of Benin
256 people bought over ten weeks of trading.
Docked · Mar 1732
Martinique
209 survivors sold at Saint-Pierre.
Sally
Left Providence 11 September 1764
- Taken aboard
- 196
- Landed alive
- 87
- Died or unaccounted
- 109
- Cargo
- Outbound: 17,274 gallons of Rhode Island rum, onions and candles.
Fitted out by the Brown brothers of Providence. Of 196 people taken aboard, at least 109 died — many after a failed uprising in which the crew fired on the captives. The voyage's surviving ledgers, kept by Brown University, are among the fullest accounts of a North American slaving venture.
Fitted out and sailed · 11 Sep 1764
Providence, Rhode Island
People taken aboard · Nov 1764 – Aug 1765
Windward Coast (Sierra Leone to Cape Mount)
196 people bought in small lots over nine months of coasting.
Docked · Nov 1765
Antigua
87 survivors landed, most of them sick and sold cheaply.
Lord Ligonier
Sailed from the Gambia River 5 July 1767
- Taken aboard
- 140
- Landed alive
- 98
- Died or unaccounted
- 42
- Cargo
- Homeward manifest: rice, indigo, beeswax, elephant's teeth and 98 people.
Landed at Annapolis on 29 September 1767. Alex Haley identified this ship as the one that carried his ancestor Kunta Kinte from the Gambia to Maryland, which is why a voyage of ordinary size in the record became one of the most widely known.
People taken aboard · Jul 1767
James Fort, Gambia River
About 140 people taken aboard.
Docked · 29 Sep 1767
Annapolis, Maryland
98 survivors advertised for sale; 42 had died in passage.
Fredensborg
Left Copenhagen 24 June 1767
- Taken aboard
- 265
- Landed alive
- 265
- Died or unaccounted
- 0
- Cargo
- Outbound: guns, gunpowder, textiles and brandy. Homeward: sugar, cotton, mahogany and dyewood.
A Danish triangular voyage whose entire paperwork survives — muster rolls, trade ledgers and the log. She sank off Norway on the last leg home in 1768 and was found in 1974, making her the best-documented slaving voyage of any flag.
Fitted out and sailed · 24 Jun 1767
Copenhagen, Denmark
People taken aboard · Nov 1767 – Apr 1768
Christiansborg, Gold Coast (Accra)
265 people boarded at the Danish fort.
Docked · Jul 1768
Christiansted, St. Croix
Recorded as 265 landed; deaths during the crossing were unusually few.
What became of her · 1 Dec 1768
Off Tromøy, Norway
Sank with her sugar cargo; the wreck and its papers survive.
Britain (Liverpool owners) · 1781
Zong
Left Accra 18 August 1781
- Taken aboard
- 442
- Landed alive
- 208
- Died or unaccounted
- 234
- Cargo
- A vessel built for 193 people, loaded with 442.
Navigational error left the ship short of water. Over three days the crew threw at least 132 living people into the sea so the owners could claim them on insurance as jettisoned cargo. The resulting court case — argued over money, never over murder — became the single most cited event in the British abolition campaign.
People taken aboard · 18 Aug 1781
Accra, Gold Coast
442 people aboard, more than double a safe load.
What became of her · 29 Nov – 1 Dec 1781
Mid-Atlantic, west of Jamaica
At least 132 people thrown overboard alive; ten more jumped.
Docked · 22 Dec 1781
Black River, Jamaica
208 survivors sold.
Britain (Liverpool) · 1781–1804, ten voyages
Brookes
Sailed repeatedly from Liverpool through the 1780s and 1790s
- Taken aboard
- 609
- Landed alive
- 351
- Died or unaccounted
- 258
- Cargo
- Outbound: Manchester cloth, firearms, iron and rum.
On one 1783 crossing she carried 609 people in a hull licensed for 454. The abolitionist diagram of her lower deck, printed in 1788, put the arithmetic of the Middle Passage in front of the British public and never left it.
Fitted out and sailed · 1783
Liverpool, England
People taken aboard · 1783
Gold Coast and Bight of Benin
609 people taken aboard on the recorded crossing.
Docked · 1783
Kingston, Jamaica
351 landed alive across the documented voyage.
Portugal, then Spain · 1839
Teçora, then La Amistad
Left the Gallinas coast in spring 1839
- Taken aboard
- 500
- Landed alive
- Unrecorded
- Died or unaccounted
- Unrecorded
- Cargo
- The Teçora carried about 500 people illegally, decades after Spain had signed the trade away.
Mende people taken near Lomboko were shipped to Havana, then loaded onto the coasting schooner La Amistad. Sengbe Pieh led an uprising at sea; the ship was seized off Long Island and the case went to the US Supreme Court, which in 1841 ruled the captives had been free people unlawfully taken. Thirty-five survivors sailed home to Sierra Leone.
People taken aboard · Spring 1839
Lomboko, Gallinas coast (Sierra Leone)
About 500 people aboard the Teçora; a third died crossing.
Docked · Jun 1839
Havana, Cuba
Sold with forged papers describing them as Cuban-born.
What became of her · 26 Aug 1839
Off Culloden Point, Long Island
Seized by the US revenue cutter Washington after the revolt.
Docked · Jan 1842
Freetown, Sierra Leone
35 survivors returned home as free people.
United States (domestic trade) · 1841
Creole
Left Richmond 25 October 1841
- Taken aboard
- 135
- Landed alive
- 135
- Died or unaccounted
- 0
- Cargo
- Tobacco and 135 enslaved people sold south from Virginia to the Louisiana market.
Not an Atlantic crossing but the coastal trade that replaced it after 1808. Madison Washington led nineteen men in taking the ship and steering for Nassau, where British officials freed almost everyone aboard — the most successful revolt in the history of American slavery.
People taken aboard · 25 Oct 1841
Richmond, Virginia
135 people loaded for sale in New Orleans.
Docked · 9 Nov 1841
Nassau, Bahamas
Almost all aboard walked free under British law.
What became of her · Intended port
New Orleans, Louisiana
The five who stayed with the ship were landed here.
United States (illegal) · 1858
Wanderer
Left the Congo River in October 1858
- Taken aboard
- 487
- Landed alive
- 409
- Died or unaccounted
- 78
- Cargo
- A racing yacht refitted with water tanks; her only cargo was people.
Fifty years after Congress banned the trade, a New York yacht landed 409 Kongo children and young people on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in the dark. The owners were tried in Savannah and acquitted. Survivors were scattered across Georgia plantations; some were still alive to be interviewed in the 1900s.
People taken aboard · Oct 1858
Congo River mouth
487 people, most of them under twenty, taken aboard.
Docked · 28–29 Nov 1858
Jekyll Island, Georgia
409 landed alive and hidden on plantations up the coast.
United States (illegal) · 1859–1860
Clotilda
Left Mobile in March 1860; left Ouidah in May 1860
- Taken aboard
- 110
- Landed alive
- 110
- Died or unaccounted
- 0
- Cargo
- Outbound: $9,000 in gold, rum and trade goods. Homeward: 110 people.
The last known slave ship to reach the United States, sailed on a bet by Timothy Meaher. The captives, mostly Yoruba and Fon from the Dahomey wars, were hidden in the marshes and the ship was burned. After emancipation the survivors founded Africatown, north of Mobile, and their descendants still live there. The wreck was confirmed in the Mobile River in 2019.
Fitted out and sailed · Mar 1860
Mobile, Alabama
People taken aboard · May 1860
Ouidah, Dahomey
110 people bought from the Dahomean barracoons.
Docked · Jul 1860
Twelve Mile Island, Mobile River
Landed at night; the schooner was then burned and sunk.