Final answer:
The 'Middle Passage' refers to the horrific journey that enslaved Africans were forced to endure aboard ships from Africa to the Americas, representing a leg in the three-part triangular trade system. The brutal conditions of this journey resulted in significant casualties. Those who survived were coerced into labor in the Americas.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term that refers to the journey that slaves made aboard ships from Africa to the Americas is known as the Middle Passage. This perilous, often deadly, transatlantic crossing took one to two months and witnessed an astonishing human toll, as enslaved Africans experienced brutal conditions aboard. The Middle Passage represents the middle (or second) leg of the three-legged triangular trade system that linked the Americas, Europe, and West Africa.
African people, once sold to traders, were transported across the Atlantic Ocean in hellish conditions on ships. The captives who survived this harrowing journey would end up in shockingly brutal slave societies in the Americas, predominantly on agricultural plantations. These plantations would grow cash crops like sugar, rice, and tobacco, which fulfilled the labor needs of European planters.
During the course of the late fifteenth through the early nineteenth centuries, European nations shipped approximately twelve million enslaved African people across the Atlantic Ocean on the Middle Passage. However, due to the harsh conditions onboard, only about ten million arrived alive. The importation of enslaved Africans brought about significant population losses in Africa and also harmed African industries as European goods were brought into the continent.
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