*RAC: Royal African Company—The King of England's own slave trading company.

Document CO 5/1319, f166 Crown copyright: Public Record Office, London. This document may be copied and downloaded for personal and research use only. You must apply to the Public Record Office for permission for any other use.

These files from the British Naval Office contain a wealth of information:

• the date of each ship's arrival in York County;
• number of Africans in the cargo; and
• the ship's port of origin.

Using this document and the information in Robert Carter's diary, we can learn which ship brought the slaves that he purchased—and where those Africans were from. Move your mouse over the page to find out what that date was—or examine an enlargement of the page (opens in pop-up window).

This document does not reveal other stops the ship may have made, but most slave ships did call on Caribbean ports before completing their journey to America.

The Atlantic crossing—the notorious "Middle Passage"—usually lasted six to ten weeks. Conditions aboard a slave ship were nearly unendurable during the ocean journey. The Africans were chained together so tightly, each one pressed against two others, that they could not even turn over.

Olaudah Equiano, a slave who later wrote his autobiography, said of the voyage:

"The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died."

About ten to twenty percent of the Africans died during the sea voyage.

Using the Naval Office Records, note in your journal where the ship that brought Robert Carter's slaves came from. Then select another document to trace the slave trade back to Africa.