Captive Passage - Departure
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Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas

Captive Passage
has been made
possible in part by:
National Endowment for the Humanities
Recognition of
additional sponsors
for this exhibition
can be found by
clicking on
ExhibitionSponsors.


Gate of No Return, 1990s
The passageway of a slave fort was often the point of no return for captured Africans. Ottobah Cugoano wrote in 1787, "I was soon conducted to a prison, for three days...when a vessel arrived to conduct us away to the ship, ... there was nothing heard but the rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and the groans and cries of our fellow men. Some would not stir from the ground, when they were lashed and beat... I have forgotten the name of this infernal fort."
Gene Peters, photographer
Courtesy of the Gene Peters Collection

Gate of No Return

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