Middle Passage Memorial Tree - Nashville, Tennessee
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 36° 09.903 W 086° 47.050
16S E 519411 N 4002276
Tree planted to honor the Africans who died on slave ships en route to the Americas from Africa. Tree and plaque located on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville.
Waymark Code: WMGGRJ
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 03/04/2013
Views: 4
Text of plaque:
Lest We Forget: The Middle Passage
C. 1444-1860
Let this scarlet oak represent the strenght and resilience of people of African descent, and commemorate Africans who died in the Middle Passage, the leg of the Atlantic Triangle in which upwards of 100 million Africans were transported as human cargo from the continent of Africa to the Americas. Estimates of one third to one half of those captured to be enslaved in the Americas died on the slave ships. The deaths were due to the inhumane way the Africans were treated, chained together skin-to-skin, no room to move, in the bowels of slave ships, where pestilence ran rampant, and due to ongoing resistance. African-Americans living and working as productive citizens in the U.S. represent/honor Africans who survived the deadly voyage. Those stolen from their homlands only to lose their lives in what is known as the Maafa deserve to be remembered that no atrocity like it occurs again in human history.
Governor Don Sundquist July 1999 TN Legislative Black Caucus