> Between 1500 and 1867, some 40,000 voyages carried 12.5 million Africans to the Americas, where they were sold into slavery.

As far as I'm aware, the majority were sold into slavery in Africa, and then resold elsewhere.

(making the distinction because it's important to why there are still open slave markets in parts of Africa)

It goes back to Roman times too, throughout the region, and widespread. The Mamluk armies were entirely non-muslim slave armies, mainly of European origin, and persisted for a thousand years until the arrival of Napoleon. Historically it was deeply entwined in the culture.

The first encounter for much of Europe with African slavery were the millions of Europeans who found themselves sold to the African and Arabic slavers or captured by the Barbary pirates. There were even slaving raids to parts of the European coasts in the early Middle Ages.

Which is not to downplay the effects of the trans Atlantic slave trade, just to put it in context a little.

Wow. 1-1.25 million enslaved by barbary pirates, 2.5 million enslaved from the black sea to the ottoman empire, and 5-17 million enslaved in the East African/Indian ocean slave trade.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

Strictly speaking you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person. Can you explain in more detail why you think this fine distinction is needed?

"carried 12.5 million Africans to the Americas, where they were sold into slavery" implies that their enslavement happened in the Americas.

However, as you say, "you are enslaved the moment someone has captured you with the purpose of selling you to another person", which was done in Africa by Africans; many of these people were later (sometimes much later) moved to the coastal areas and sold and transported to Americas, however many were not, and were kept in slavery in Africa.

The original statement focuses solely on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and implies that the enslavement happened solely for that, which is untrue. Enslaving free people and trading them was a local endeavor done by local rulers and strongmen (the main source of slaves was 'prisoners of war' or robbery raids in local conflicts), though of course them becoming a profitable export commodity significantly increased the amount of "business".

Because it is important to understanding the economic structure of slavery, why the Scramble for Africa only happened in the 1880s, and to understand the context for some of the pro-imperialist rhetoric in Europe which led up to the Scramble for Africa.

He's trying to say that over millenia whites enslaved whites, blacks enslaved blacks and viceversa. Nothing personal or racial

> Nothing personal or racial

I don't think it's the case that there was nothing racial about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, at least in terms of justifying it to a public who would increasingly be inclined to think that society can tell people not to keep slaves.

Though I would tend to agree that slavery was never only about race, not before the trans-Atlantic trade, and not during.

I am not sure why you are being voted down. The existence of slavery in the 21st C. does not get the attention it should.

Wikipedia seems to confirm this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#African_p...

A lot of slaves were prisoners of war traded for western guns. All the more terrible for the reason African slavers were made more powerful thanks to their trade with Western ones.

This model is cool, but also clinical: if you're interested in understanding what it was like to be an African kidnapped and sold via the Atlantic slave trade, consider reading Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon[1] or Aley Haley's Roots[2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barracoon:_The_Story_of_the_La...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots:_The_Saga_of_an_American...

Or you can read accounts by slaves themselves. Olaudah Equiano is a particularly interesting figure:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm

Roots is fiction, please don't try an understand the world from fiction or even novels based on truth many or most 'popular' cultural autobiographies are faked, from your Roots link -

"However, historians and genealogists found critical errors in his research. Most of the novel is either unsupported or contradicted by the available evidence."

Roots was advertised as a fictionalization of Haley's family lore.

I'm a little disappointed that they had to make a video in order for people to view the 3D model on the web. The model itself should be viewable in a browser, just like an image, a sound or a video. This is exactly the sort of thing that glTF was designed for, so maybe one day that will be a reality.

Except for glTF to work, WebGL needs to work as well and it isn't a given, without any sort of control of what kind of hardware or browser someone is using.

And even if the hardware and browser offer proper WebGL support, it might occur that the drivers are black listed, thus making any proper use of WebGL unbewarable.

Such is the WebGL reality, where devices with native support for OpenGL ES 3.2, might still struggle to see a WebGL 2.0 scene.

With a video everyone gets to enjoy it.

That's what I'm lamenting. I want to live in a world where a 3D model is no more exceptional than a JPEG.

There's no inherent requirement for OpenGL support to render glTF 2.0. WebGL is only required because browsers don't include native support.

The irony is that is exactly what Khronos shows on their glTF presentations.

I guess they're trying to prevent anyone copying the 3d model? :\

Weird. Because of privacy settings I can't view the 3d model walk-through video. Anyone else getting the issue? I disabled ublock but no dice.

https://slavevoyages.org/voyage/ship

It seems like you need to allow cookies for player.vimeo.com to get past that dialog.

"To get" makes it sound like a technical limitation. "To go" more accurately represents the manipulative choice I suspect is the actual limitation.

The maps at the exhibit referenced[1] were fascinating.

I know people often criticize topics that surface anything remotely concerning race, as there is a “race to the bottom”, but I often find that I learn a lot just by the fact-checking that it spawns.

To that end, one reference that I didn’t know coming in is “Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660”, for the degree to which Trans Atlantic slave trade re-shaped Central African society. Secondly, a book I read a year or so ago Ibrahim Kendi’s “Stamped From The Beginning” which discusses how exponential profits reaped by the trans-Atlantic and inter-America slave trade — unprecedented in the human practice of enslavement — spawned racist hierarchies that persist now.

[1] https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/maps

" "We designed the model to be sensitive to the numerous issues of representing the slave trade,” added Dr. Radburn. “The feedback we’ve received so far has been very positive. "

What does being sensitive to issues about slavery mean? Is it historical accurate or not? There should be no positivity. Only accuracy. It's not like anyone truly imagines these days that any slavery from any time period was a summer camp get-away. If someone can't handle the historical reality, don't read about it to begin with. Bad things happened in the past. Get over it, but learn from it so we don't make the same mistakes. Putting your head in the sand doesn't change it. What's next, concentration camps will be downgraded to just weight loss centers because people's sensitivities can't handle "people were tortured and died in these places".

It’s funny because “concentration camp” itself in the WW2 sense is a euphemism for death camps. A concentration camp is nothing more than a place where you concentrate individuals that you don’t want to allow to freely walk around at large but don’t want to put into individual prison cells either. Inherently, there is nothing wrong with a concentration camp.

At this point, the whole term "concentration camp" has a negative connotation and implies that the people being placed in the camp are being placed there for innate traits such as race or nationality, instead of based on their actions (in which case we just call it "jail" or "prison". Many people do think of "death camps" when they hear the term, only because of the notoriety of the Nazi camps.

The US ran their own concentration camps during WW2, to house Japanese Americans. Sure, the US didn't go to the depths of the Nazi concentration camps, but that doesn't make it any less deplorable to round people up purely based on their race or nationality (or any other now-protected status).

I think you're reading a little too much into the word "sensitive". Nothing in the article suggests the historian is trying to whitewash or downplay the horrors of slavery.

Then why say that?

I couldn't imagine the heat dang, smells, damn Screenshot from video https://i.imgur.com/9dooh8v.png

That doesn't even factor in the sea sickness. Chained and locked in one position with people stacked on top of you? Some of them vomiting on your head in a sweltering, stifling, and pitch dark hole all day for 2 or 3 months? No thanks.

2/3 months, damn, whoever is still alive…

The barbarity and cruelty of mankind never fails to surprise and sadden me.

Where is 3D model file?