Slave Shackles

Shaniyah (Student)

Enslaved Africans were forced to endure the terrifying and brutal journey across the Atlantic from the West Coast of Africa to the Americas.  Shackles were used to restrain and imprison Africans below decks in the ship’s hold.  The shackles, recently acquired by this museum, are of one type used to transport captured Africans to chattel slavery in the Americas- part of the “Middle Passage” of the transatlantic slave trade.  “These shackles … pressed the flesh of a human being and bring to the fore the violence of slavery.”

Slaves were punished for not working fast enough, for being late getting to the fields, for defying authority, for running away, and for a number of other reasons.  The punishments took many forms, including whippings, torture, mutilation, imprisonment, and being sold away from the plantation and their families.