Underwater sculpture, in Grenada, in honor of our African Ancestors who were thrown overboard the slave ships during the Middle Passage of the African Holocaust. —Artist, Jason DeCaires Taylor

The Real African American Brick Wall

*The Middle Passage


Suicide and starvation were a couple of the means for how the captured Africans dealt with the Middle Passage on the slave ships. They would jump off the ships or attempt to not eat. Some were too sick or deceased and were tossed overboard.

Since they didn’t make it to the shores of the ‘New World’, you could assume that there are no descendants. However, they may have had captured kin that did make it to Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.

American Slavery ceased at the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation was in effect. However, slave ships were still coming to the Americas as late as 1866.

Some genealogists state that the African American research ‘brick wall’ begins just prior to the 1870 census. Slaves were, generally, not listed in the records by name. The real brick wall begins with the Middle Passages.

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George Geder

Photo by Underwater sculpture, in Grenada, in honor of our African Ancestors who were thrown overboard the slave ships during the Middle Passage of the African Holocaust. —Artist, Jason DeCaires Taylor

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