This illustration shows the internal layout of the slave ship Brookes, detailing how enslaved Africans were confined aboard the vessel. The diagram labels the lower deck, half-deck, and upper deck, along with separate areas designated for men, women, and boys. Platforms were installed to increase capacity, forcing people to lie packed tightly together with almost no space to move.
The Brookes was a 320-ton ship and one of eighteen slave vessels investigated by a British parliamentary committee in 1788 while considering regulations for the transatlantic slave trade. Although the ship was designed to hold 451 people, abolitionists documented voyages in which as many as 609 enslaved Africans were forced onboard. This diagram was widely circulated by abolitionists to expose the inhuman conditions of the Middle Passage and to build public support for ending the slave trade.
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